[sloegin]

Might get one

[Springlands]

NOOOOOO!! I know that they are a good idea in theory but the thought of all those wriggly worms. Even worse than the frogs that jump out at me in the greenhouse. 

[Janeymiddlewife]

NOOOOOO!! I know that they are a good idea in theory but the thought of all those wriggly worms. Even worse than the frogs that jump out at me in the greenhouse. 

They make a lovely slushy sound when you open the lid springlands!!!
They take a long time to produce much wormpost, mine stopped producing worm tea earlier this year and I couldn't work out why til I moved the bin and discovered a crack in the side where it's all been going - no worms have escaped from Wormcatraz as far as i can see!
Will have to prop it over a drip tray so I can collect the tea - it's good for tomatoes!

Also as our council are going to restrict the number of bags we can put out to 80 per year next year    will have to cut down on what goes in the bin even more and wormery will help as you can put quite a lot of kitchen waste in.
HTH
JMW

[SarahB]

Used to have one - managed to kill the worms off not once, but twice.  When I cleaned it out the second time, I found two final worms still living, so I released them to freedom in the garden.  There were a lot of white thread worms in the bin, which I think mean the acidity was wrong, but I could never seem to get it running right.    After the second time, it seemed kinder to the worms not to try it again!

[sloegin]

Not sure whether to get one. I work in a kitchen (chef) with lots of scraps i've sooo much for the compost thought i'd let the worms get a good rummage too!

[PennyS]

I've got one.  Got it last year pre-allotment (for Christmas!!).  I was having trouble with composting, as I haven't got as much room for compost bins as I'd like in my garden.  It's been producing evil smelling liquid which smells like it must be doing some good!! Anyway I dilute it and feed the garden with it.

Most of the compost material goes on the lotty but we produce quite a lot of green waste so the wormery has plenty too...

I suppose now we have the lotty with 3 compost bays we could abandon the wormery but I would feel heartless making these poor worms homeless when they've been working so hard - so it's staying!!
 

[Janeymiddlewife]

Not sure whether to get one. I work in a kitchen (chef) with lots of scraps i've sooo much for the compost thought i'd let the worms get a good rummage too!

They don't like onion, garlic & citrus as it's too acidic. you are meant to add lime occasionally, or crushed egg shells. If they aren't happy they'll let you know by climbing to the top of the bin   It's usually either too wet/dry or you've added something they don't like. You can then cover them with finely shredded nespaper to snuggle into & they usually stop trying to escape! I'm quite fond of mine in a strange sort of way. I've got the chepaer type of bin which is a pain when you need to empty it - I got some of my son's friends to help - being 9 they were the right age to do this with. You need to tip them on  to a plastic sheet or binliner, then try to throw the  worms back in & keep the compost back in a separate container.

[WirralWally]

Someone bought me a wormery as a present 2 years ago.

In my opinion it is the biggest waste of time and space ever.
What it produces is negligible.
If you want to produce anything that will be of use on anything bigger than a window box then forget it and explore the alternatives, unless you get yourself a size-huge wormery.

The only benefit it has is to amuse my very young grandchildren for a few minutes when they visit and want to see their granddad's wiggly worms.  

[sloegin]

Sounds like fun!!  

[Zippy]

In my opinion it is the biggest waste of time and space ever.
What it produces is negligible.

I don't agree - I've taken off enough worm tea to keep my tomatoes well fed this summer and my cucumbers too; must have been about 4 litres this year.  Also the bin is gradually filling up with wormpost so i will be decanting some of that off at some point.

The secret is to ensure the worms are working and living at their optimum - not too cold or hot, not too wet or dry and keep the mix sweet with a sprinkle of lime and don't pile the veg on top so it starts heating up - they don't like that.

An excellent addition to any garden.

[mike1987]

i was given one a few months ago by someone that just couldnt get it right so far i must be doing something right ive had loads of tea from it and about  1 liter of compost from it they are not the fatsest methoed of composting but they are good for the liquid tea and the resulting compost is great for mixing with multi purpse when potting on seedlings when i have a spare min or 2 i will post the pics of my exeriment one one tray with worm compost and feed  one tray with multi purpose and worm tea and one tray with nothing added and you can see the results for yoursleves

[Comfortably Numb]

Not sure whether to get one. I work in a kitchen (chef) with lots of scraps i've sooo much for the compost thought i'd let the worms get a good rummage too!

They don't like onion, garlic & citrus as it's too acidic. you are meant to add lime occasionally, or crushed egg shells. If they aren't happy they'll let you know by climbing to the top of the bin   It's usually either too wet/dry or you've added something they don't like. You can then cover them with finely shredded nespaper to snuggle into & they usually stop trying to escape! I'm quite fond of mine in a strange sort of way. I've got the chepaer type of bin which is a pain when you need to empty it - I got some of my son's friends to help - being 9 they were the right age to do this with. You need to tip them on  to a plastic sheet or binliner, then try to throw the  worms back in & keep the compost back in a separate container.

Conjures up a wonderful image 

[lacewing]

I agree with WirralWally, not worth the bother!!

[8doubles]

I`ve had cheap trouble free wormeries for many years also known as compost heaps.

[arugula]

Interesting mix of opinions here, but what else should I expect? I suggested we get one, then OH decided he would make one if we did, purely because I thought it might be a way of producing compost quite quickly, as our bins don't always seem to be able to keep up with our peelings etc.

Is it a quicker way than compost bins of processing waste to produce compost?