Composting & Recycling: Worm Composting

How to compost

 
Mayo County Council - Worm Composting

Vermicomposting

Composting garden waste and fruit and vegetable scraps from the kitchen is a great way of reducing the amount of waste we throw away. This saves valuable landfill space, and compost itself is great for your garden. Keeping earthworms in containers and feeding them fruit and vegetable scraps, is another cheap, simple way to cut down on waste. As a bonus, the worms produce a wonderful garden fertiliser - worm castings.
Worms compost quickly. They can eat half their own body weight in waste everyday!

You can not use ordinary earthworms in a wormery as the conditions are too rich, you will need to get special composting worms. These worms can be purchased from a number of companies in Ireland. You can order your worms over the phone and they will be delivered to your door!
Special wormeries can be bought to house your worms or you can make your own.
This can be done simply using an old bin or box.

For more information contact any of the companies listed below or contact:
Sharon Cameron, Environmental Awareness Officer, Mayo County Council, Aras an Chontae, Castlebar, Tel: 094 90 24444, e mail: scameron@mayococo.ie

Making a worm bin

(Information compliments of the Irish Peat Land Conservation Council, www.ipcc.ie)

Worm bins are an ideal way to compost organic kitchen and garden waste in a small area. What you will need: one large bin with a lid, a drill, some gravel, a round piece of heavy duty plastic perforated with holes and cut to fit into the bottom of the bin, some leaf mould or strawy manure, your organic kitchen waste, and most important of all - your worms.
Take a large bin and drill holes near the bottom of it to allow any excess water to escape.
1. Put some gravel in the bottom.
2. Place the perforated piece of plastic on top of the gravel.
3. Put in a layer of leaf mould or strawy manure as a bedding and add the worms.
Now your worm bin is ready to take your kitchen waste.

Top Tips

• Add a little chopped waste everyday, avoiding meat or orange peel (citrus fruits), perennial weed roots and weed seeds, and grass mowings. Feed them little and often.
• When first feeding the worms put the food in one corner of the bin, so they have somewhere to move if they do not like the food.
• Be careful how much food you add: too much may heat up the bin and drive the worms away, leaving the food to putrefy and the bin will begin to smell which a well run bin does not.
• Cover the waste with wet newspaper to prevent any smell and keep in moisture.
  Put a lid on the bin to keep the flies out.
• Water the surface if the mixture gets dry.

Worms like to be kept warm so keep the bin away from the cold winds and frosts, ideally situating the bin in a sheltered spot that is sunny for only part of the day, too much sun could overheat the bin.

When the bin is full leave it until all the kitchen waste has been eaten and turned into brown crumbly worm compost which should take 3 to 4 months. Then you can dig out your compost and put it in a bag to mature further or use it immediately in the garden. Collect any worms while you empty the bin and put them back in to restart the cycle. This compost can be used as potting compost or put directly onto the soil to add fertility.

Happy composting!