Wood Worm Farms

This simple device serves me to collect rain water. Plants and worms like it more then chlorinated water from the tap.

Here it's in action.


All the construction consists of a paint tray, a piece of wood and an
8 litre (2 gallons) used mineral water plastic container.

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Very nice presentation. It clearly explains why landfilling food waist is a problem. Also mentions vermicomposting.

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Since August my outdoor bin came under constant attacks of an unknown invader. It punched holes in plastic mesh and poured out the bin's content. In the middle of September the invader - a little mouse - decided to permanently move to the bin.
After several attempts to solve the conflict by political means - removing the nest, patching the holes and adding more bedding materials - it became clear, that a military action is unavoidable.
On October 3rd, after short fight the mouse was taken a prisoner of war and named Bin.
Now Bin lives in an old hamster cage and is treated accordingly with Geneva convention - eats what the 'local soldiers' eat.

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Autumn is coming and my composting worms move to the basement.
I decided to release to the wild my Canadian Nightcrawlers until it's not too cold for them to hide. It would be hard to move their bin to the basement since it's heavy and has a lot of 'visitors' inside.

I found 52 large worms in the bin - almost all of the 'sick' worms I putted there in April. I also found some cocoons (on the picture they are shown near the cocoons of Eisenia Fedita).
The experiment confirmed that the 'wild' worms can live in a modified bin - actually simply in a wooden box - and even process dead leaves and precomposted grass clippings in a good rate.
The worms themselves look healthy.


Here is the disassembled bin.


It is simply a 3 trays bin with all the separating meshes removed and a base made from wooden pieces to let the rain water out. It was filled for 2.5 trays with a local clay soil mixed with dead leaves, old grass clippings and sand.
The remaining half tray was used to feed the worms with dead leaves and some vegetable scrap. The worms seemed to enjoy this diet.

I will probably continue this experiment next spring.

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It's a good idea to dry the trays before reusing them. This will extend the tray's life and - in some extent - reduce the number of unwanted 'guests' in the bin.

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