Eight Acres

I've had a compost worm farm for several years now.  Actually I currently have three worm farms.  They are a little addictive!  I didn't know anything about compost worms before I got them, but I fell in love with the concept of having somewhere to dispose all our organic (vegetative) waste that would also reliably produce compost and liquid fertiliser.  The worms and I have been very happy with our relationship and I thought I knew everything I needed to know, but then a neighbour (who we respect as a very good hay farmer) recommended this book - Organic Farming with Worms, by David Murphy  (and that's not even an affiliate link because its not on Amazon).  Not just recommended it, he actually raved about it and showed us his new compost worm farm, and he said he'd bought copies of the book for all his friends!  This really got my interest, so I ordered a copy for myself. This book is for anyone who is serious about getting more out of their ...

Organic gardening is easy.  In fact, once you get your organic garden established, it should be easier and cheaper than "conventional" chemical gardening.  The most important thing is to forget everything the chemical companies have told you about gardening.  Forget NPK fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides.  You need to learn to work WITH nature and gradually nature will start doing most of the work for you.  Don't just replace chemicals with organic inputs either.  Here's three essential principles to get you thinking differently. 1. Forget fertiliser - feed the soil I wrote about soil a few weeks ago  and my main conclusion was that if you increase organic matter everything else starts to balance.  My favourite way to increase organic matter in the soil is compost.  And my favourite way to compost is using worms.  Worm compost is fool-proof!  You just need to set up a worm farm , add worms and kitchen scraps and harves...

Even if you are not confident with compost you will find worm farming to be amazingly easy. I was scared at first that I would kill my worms, as there seemed to be so many rules about how to look after them, but after two years I’ve realised that as long as you keep your worms in the shade and feed them occasionally, they will be just fine. They will continue to produce compost and worm wee for your garden (and worms for your chickens), even if you forget them for a few weeks. I started with a tiny handful of worms, and they have gradually multiplied to the point where I think I have enough to start another worm farm. All you need to start a worm farm is a container to keep them in (either a commercial worm farm or one of the many DYI options on the web), some worms and some scraps to get them started. If you buy a commercial worm farm it usually comes with some coconut coir that you soak in water, this is somewhere cool and moist for your worms to hide until they’ve buil...

I have had the worm farm for over a year now , and I have to say it’s the easiest and most convenient way I have found to make compost and to dispose of vege scraps and other organic waste. I have not had much success with putting everything in a compost bin, I find that the food scraps go all sloppy and don’t really compost properly. I have found that my current system works much better, all food scraps go to the worms and the compost bin is for weeds and manure. The worms are able to eat all our food scraps and convert it to compost and worm tea, and there is still plenty for the compost bin, but now its not full of sloppy food scraps. People often ask if its necessary or possible to have both a worm farm and a compost bin, and I think it actually works better for us. The worm farm really requires very little maintenance.  All I have to do is tip in more food scraps every few days, drain the tea once a week or so, check that the top tray is damp (if not, tip in half a...

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... I've been "worm farming" since a friend gave me a small handful of worms from his farm and I set up a worm farm purchased from Aldi.  The worm farm has two trays and a vessel underneath with a tap to catch all the worm juice.  I started with the bottom tray empty and the worms were in the top tray with vege scraps, covered with their blanket and the lid.  At first I didn't need to feed them much, just the occasional lettuce leaf, but they multiplied very quickly, and were soon ready to eat all our vege scraps.  Finally I filled the top tray and swapped the trays, so I had the empty tray at the top again.  When the top tray was full again, I needed to empty the compost from the bottom tray.   worms! The compost was beautiful, but full of worms.  There are lot...

When we first talked about getting an aquaponics kit one of my main concerns was how we would feed the fish.  I didn't want to be constantly buying fish food.  One of the options is to feed worms to the fish, so I've been planning to get a worm farm established.  We had planned to make one from an old wheelie bin, but that project has ended up low on the list since we got the new property.  Recently a friend at work told me that worm farms were on sale at Aldi, only $50, and I thought that might be a good way to get started.  Farmer Pete's dad has 3 worm farms, so I'm sure you can never have too many!  We will make the wheelie bin worm farm later, for now we have a small one to get us started.   I only started with a handfull of worms Before we decided to try aquaponics, I thought I didn't need a worm farm because with the compost and the chickens I didn't think I'd have anything to feed them, but my compost is full, so there should be pl...