How to Set Up a Worm Farm (A Beginner’s Guide)
Imagine a team of tiny workers who happily eat your food scraps, never take a day off, and pay you in premium garden fertiliser. That's a worm farm. It's one of the easiest ways to cut down your household waste, and setting one up is actually far simpler than you might think. Let's get into it.
What exactly is a worm farm?
A worm farm is a container where you can put your organic waste materials and lots and lots of wiggly worm friends. These wriggly critters will happily turn that waste into an amazing natural fertiliser for your garden. Worm farms can come in all shapes and sizes, which makes them ideal for people with big backyards or little ones, even for those with no backyard at all!
What materials do you need to set up a worm farm?
Worm farms aren’t too complex to set up and you only need this small handful of things:
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A Worm Farm Container:
Your hungry little worms need a place to live! The best thing to do is to purchase a specially made two or three layer container. These can usually be found at your local garden/hardware stores and are often available through some local councils. There are also lots of videos on YouTube detailing how to make your own if you feel particularly creative! -
Wiggly Compost Worms:
Once you’ve got a place to put them, grab yourself some worms. You can purchase compost worms from so many places, ranging from your local garden and hardware stores to specific composting worm farms where you can have them delivered to your door.
You would normally start with at least 1000 worms, and you would increase from there depending on how much organic waste your household produces. -
Newspaper/Cardboard/Bedding Block:
These items are used to form the base of the worm farm on the bottom layer. -
Hessian sack:
Hessian sacks are used to cover the top layer of organic scraps -
Food scraps/compost:
This is the final piece of the puzzle. Simply add your organic food scraps throughout the day. But don’t add garlic, onion, dairy, citrus fruits, chilli, meat/bones, fish or oil into the worm farm – these can cause some pretty nasty smells and attract pests. Not to mention, the worms don’t like it!
How do you set up the worm farm?
Once you’ve got all of your equipment (and some worms), it’s time to actually build the worm farm. Follow these steps:
Step 1: Lining the tray
You need to line the bottom or ‘home’ tray of the worm farm with the cardboard and newspaper that you have. It is best if you cut it to the size and shape that fits your container perfectly.
Step 2: Soaking the bedding block
Soak the bedding block in some water until it starts to break up (about 30mins) and then you can break it apart and spread it over the cardboard base you’ve already put down.
Step 3: Layering
Add a layer of compost on top of the bedding block
Step 4: Add your worms
Add your worms on top of the bedding and let them settle in — they'll burrow down away from the light
Step 5: Add your organics
On the top or ‘working’ tray you can add some more compost and your food scraps (try to cut the scraps into smaller pieces to make it easier for the worms to digest). Make sure that you cover the scraps with the hessian sack for insulation and protection.
Feeding your worms
Worms are hungry little things, but don’t go overboard – in a normal home setup they’ll get through roughly their own weight in food each week. Overfeeding is the most common beginner mistake and leads to all kinds of smells and unwanted bugs, so start slow and add more as they multiply.
What do worms give you back?
Two things, and both are gold dust for your garden.
The first is worm castings (aka worm poo). This dark crumbly stuff is a brilliant natural fertiliser, packed with nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that plants love.
The second is the liquid that drains out the bottom, which you’ll often hear is called “worm tea”. A quick myth-bust on that: what actually collects in the bottom tray is technically leachate, not true worm tea. Leachate isn’t the miracle fertiliser it is sometimes described to be and isn’t recommended for use with any plants that produce food. However, it is still amazing for your other plants such as the decorative or ornamental ones.
Watering your worms
Worms like their home to be damp, but they don’t like swimming, so don’t overdo it. A good rule of thumb for this is to aim for the dampness of a wrung-out sponge rather than a swimming pool.
If you can see that liquid is constantly pooling in the base of the worm farm, that’s a pretty telltale sign of overwatering. Keep the bedding moist with a light spray as needed and you’ll keep both the worms and your nose happy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What worms are best for a worm farm?
The worms used in worm farms are special compost worms such as red wigglers (yes that’s their real name), tigers, or Indian blues. Your ordinary garden earthworms won’t survive in a bin and so they don’t work for composting.
Can I put a worm farm inside?
You absolutely can. When a worm farm is properly balanced, it’s essentially odourless. We’d suggest keeping them in the laundry, garage, or out on a balcony if they can be kept out of direct sunlight.
What can’t you feed worms?
The main things that can't be fed to your worm farm are onion, garlic, citrus, chilli, dairy, meat, fish, bones, and oily foods.
Go green with Ecobin
Setting up a worm farm is one of the easiest ways to keep food scraps out of landfill. And if you want to make the whole kitchen-to-compost routine even simpler, our kitchen caddies and organic waste bins are built for exactly that.