Choosing the best worm farm for your workplace
So you want to start a worm farm — great!
The soil that worms make when they munch through your food scraps is called ‘worm castings’ or ‘vermicast.’ (Vermi- is the Latin word for worm, so vermicomposting is composting with worms)
Worm castings are one of the best ingredients for your garden — you can add it to potting mix to give your plants food they can use immediately, you can stir it in water to make a worm tea, and you can even sprinkle it around the top of the soil your houseplants are in as a way to give them a seasonal treat.
More importantly though, is that when you have a worm farm, then your food scraps don’t have to be put into a rubbish bag, to go onto a truck headed for landfill.
Even if you have a food scrap collection, when you have a worm farm at work, you are saving the double handling of that material (let’s be honest though, your food scraps are probably handled by a dozen people, if you count the many steps between your office, the composting facility and then the garden centre where the finished soil is later sold in single use plastic bags)
One of the many visions for Blue Borage is to help localise our food system, and to do this we need to also localise our composting systems.
I’m curious what the tipping point will be, where enough people learn how to use a worm farm that they become as normal in a workplace as a coffee machine, fridge and running water.
How many worm farms do we need?
Last time I counted I had 10 worm farms at the little soil farm in Tuakau. Is that too many?
Maybe it is going a bit far for just one person living alone, but when you’re obsessed with worm farming and composting, it’s hard to say no to another one.
This is why I have started offering a 360 full circle wraparound service: I collect food scraps and garden waste from my VIP customers (including a local cafe), bring them to the soil farm to turn them into soil, and then take the soil back to my customers in the form of potting mix, seedlings, or in the case of the Sugar Plum Kitchen, bouquets of flowers grown in soil made from their food scraps.
Your waste, your soil, your flowers and your vegetables.
If you’re interested in this service, there’s an application form here
But back to the question about how many worm farms is normal.
Most families find that two is enough. Most schools can probably make do with one worm farm per classroom. For workplaces, it really depends on the type of food waste and garden waste you’re making. This is why I like creating a customised plan for every customer I work with.
Below are the worm farms I take to demonstration events, such as the Climathon at Waikato University in October 2022.
Ukhu Pacha (Worm Tower) from Pacha Compost
Here’s a terracotta worm tower — no plastic, wood or metal.
The clay absorbs excess moisture, and also seems to prevent odours in a way that plastic doesn’t. If you are a gardener who doesn’t like using plastic tools, then the Pacha products are worth considering.
It’s brand new for Christmas 2022.
The only downside I can think of is that the clay is really solid, and therefore quite heavy. This is probably not something you’d expect small children to carry, and it might be a risky investment for school groups where tools are expected to withstand a lot of rough handling.
When the worm farm is installed in a garden bed, it can stay put for a long time, and from that point onwards it’s good for small children to use. Would the lid break if dropped? I haven’t tested it yet, but Victoria assures me that replacement lids aren’t a problem to sell as individual items.
New Zealand’s long term favourite worm farm — the Hungry Bin
This is a pretty standard choice for lots of New Zealand families, schools, community groups and workplaces. The surface area is really generous, which means the worms can work on a large amount of food waste (I make sure about 5cm at the top is food scraps, covered with a piece of damp cardboard)
The one downside with this system (for me) is the mechanism at the bottom. I’ve come across a lot of damaged clips, clogged bases, and trays that cannot be cleaned. Even worse was the day I wrestled with the clips only to have the whole contets fall out of bottom of the worm farm. The system is designed so that you only remove a small layer at a time from the bottom, but I’ve had several customers who are too busy to do this maintenance. The solution I recommend is to use a compost aerator to remove finished worm castings via the top.
New product from Australia: the Subpod ModBed
Retail stockist in New Zealand: Gubba Garden Store: https://www.gubba.co.nz/compos...
For those purchasing in Australia, USA or UK, then I have an affiliate code to get you a 10% discount. The code is BLUEBORAGE10
This worm farm seems to have addressed a number of issues with the common barriers that people have about worm farming:
- In-ground worm farms don’t need much maintenance, as the leachate is absorbed into the soil and feeds the roots of the plants on a daily basis. Kind of like how nature works.
- It doesn’t look like a rubbish bin or recycling bin. If anything, it looks like a bench seat, and blends in with most people’s gardens.
- The instructions are printed inside the lid — no need to go hunting for the instruction manual.
- By having a garden bed right next to your worm farm, you can grow flowers, food, and herbs where you compost. This ‘closes the loop’ in the mind of consumers, and helps reinforce the fact that food scraps are a precious resource and have never been waste.
Are there any downsides to the Subpod worm farm system? They are a big investment, and out of reach of a lot of families. They are plastic, and will never turn to soil. Other than that, I think this is a product that would find a home near almost any kitchen in the world.
Cheap and cheerful, the worm farm most families start off with.
Thanks to the taxpayer funded compost education programmes that get these square worm farms into so many gardens.
They are effective, and a good way to learn the basics of worm farming. Used correctly, they will make huge amounts of worm castings.
Downsides: For me, the size of each layer when filled with damp soil is heavy, and if the worm farm is at ground level, then it’s a strain to lift them safely. The way this system works, you do need to swap the boxes over every now and then, so lifting is necessary. The bottom box is designed to hold leachate, and has a tap so that you can empty it out a little at a time. I generally find that people let the bottom box fill up, and this stagnant liquid is pretty gross to deal with — that’s one of the main reasons I try and get people to use in-ground worm farms instead.
DIY Worm farms
Can you make your own?
Yes, you can!
I make mine out of buckets, drilling 6mm holes around the base of the bucket for the worms to get in and out.
You could use something as small as an ice-cream container, or go as big as a large rubbish bin. Have a play and see what works for your space.
Converted bathtub
The great thing about bathtub worm farms is the volume of soil they hold, with a comparatively large surface area. When you think about worm farm worms being surface feeders, then a large surface area means they can get to work on more of your food scraps at any one time.
For those wanting to dive deep into the science of vermiculture, or for ideas on large scale worm farm systems, then my go-to resource is the book by Rhonda Sherman: ‘The Worm Farmer’s Handbook: Mid- to Large-Scale Vermicomposting for Farms, Businesses, Municipalities, Schools, and Institutions.’
https://www.amazon.com/Worm-Fa...
Rhonda also has a webinar on this topic at the ILSR (Institute of Local Self-Relianc)
https://ilsr.org/webinar-vermi...
Want to learn more?
Send me an email at katrina@blueborage.co.nz to get the latest online courses on worm farming, or to book me to come and talk to you and your colleagues at work.
Ideas for innovative edible gardening solutions using biodynamic methods to make exquisite compost is what the world needs right now. To see the full range of online courses go to blueborage.teachable.com or get in touch by email at katrina@blueborage.co.nz
