The worms that is, these guys are going absolutely great guns, the population has increased and they are slowly moving up the penthouse suite. After some tramatic reno’s on their home, which invlove a complete clean and installation of some mesh on the middle level to prevent barry’s entering the lower level and facing their death!

The inclusion of several bananas, plenty of leafy vegetables and plenty of coffee grounds has made them very very happy. Removal of the upper level for inspection one is amzed to experience the level of heat that is generated by these guys hard at work, not to mention the racket they make when you take the top level off, its like the mass exodus to the depths!

It is quite amazing to see when the farm is healthly and there is a good turn over of food that there is little if no smell when th etop is removed, also the annoying little blowins are far and few between. When things were alittle worse for wear there was a whole host on other friends coming in for a feed – not any more, the worms have it!

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So when some asks you whether you have a pet (s) what do you say if all ya got is a worm farm? ‘well sort of’ is usually the response, with that said, I feed them and occasionally look at them and they provide some entertainment so I guess they constitute as pets! – fish for example are much the same, feed them and watch them…

However worms have a pretty useful side benefit – they eat scraps and give great fertiliser! even liquid fertiliser so i thats one extra point for worms over fish. Now worms are a bit picky when it comes to food, you can’t just feed them any old scrap, for example, no onions, bread meat or dairy products, basically whatever falls on the ground naturally is what they eat. However there are some excellent kitchen waste products that they just love, coffee grinds, banana peels (they love these) , any leafy vegetable, tea bags (remove the staple) just to name a few.

Now we got ours from the Watershed (newtown) when we did the workshop there, 65 bucks is not bad either especially considering it is recycled plastic and also australian designed and made. The actual worms can be purchased here also for 30 odd bucks (not a bad trade either, i reckon ya could make a few bob this way!). The actual name of the farm is a “Worm Factory” see here for more.

Now the pictures here are from our one which we got in Jan 08, it is fairly well developed and we are almost moving upstairs to the next level.

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More useful links:

http://www.ryde.nsw.gov.au/services/worm.htm

http://www.reln.com.au/worm-factory-p-131.html

http://www.nitrowormfarms.com/worm_farms.html