Worm Farm - High Rise

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Make sure you check out my other worm farm with volume!

The High rise Worm farm

There are three parts to a worm farm,

1 The basement sewer, (that we love to empty for our plants delight)
2 The middle floor bedroom (we sleep too you know)
3 The top floor dining room (food has to be involved)

In this high rise farm the different rooms are separated by individual containers, this is not always the case as you will see from other worm farm in-structables, but is by far the easiest to do the house keeping on.

The Worm farm in this in-structable, was constructed from Polystyrene boxes of the type commonly seen in the back yard of butchers, grocerys and fish shops in New Zealand and Australia.

Step 1 What you Need

What you will need;
Minimum of three polystyrene boxes, (in my case they measure 100cm x 60cm x 60cm with 2cm thick walls with lids and a bead running around the top of the box which meshes with the lids)

-A plastic tap with washer and nut
(Or some means for controlling and dispensing the contents of the basement box) of the
-A cutter of some description
(For cutting the boxes)
-A drill and drill bit to match the external diameter of your tap barrel.
-Bricks or wooden blocks the width of the containers
(Producing sufficient height when stacked to get a bucket under the tap.)
-Two halve bricks or stones
(Extra for weight)
-Marker pen
-Bedding material
(Shredded white paper, light cardboard or coconut fibre)
-Food scrapes
-Extra stability (optional)

Comments

[maireid]

We have a commercially built worm farm. We got it just two months ago, and the worms are thriving. It is round, and has 4 levels, sitting on legs. We are only using 3 levels at this stage. They say it will take a year for the 1000 worms to multiply before we'll need the 4th level. We plan on using the castings in the garden beds next season (see instructable post on Wicking Beds ). I have a friend who turned me on to the worm farm idea. She's had one for 12 years, and she says the 'worm juice' is a potent fertilizer. She recommends using it right away, diluted with water. Because it is very potent, it will go a long way. At this stage in my learning curve on taking care of them, I blend the veggie cuttings before serving it to them. My friend says I'm spoiling them, but to me it seems more efficient for them to get to the food.

[agatornz]

Hi there,

Good to get your feed back! :-)

yes the commercial bins are excellent particular for indoors and for starting off, they do have their limitations however too - the key to worm farms pretty much is:the more space = the more food = the more worms = the faster there is a useful outcome. hence the reason I have since gone to bath tub worm farms ( check out my post on that subject - or search my user name )

i give my worms away to beginners all the time and it only takes a very short time to return the numbers to normal.. like men if they are well feed they are happy and in the case of worms the population thrives.

you can tell your friend that you are doing the right thing when it comes to "spoiling" your worms... because worms don't actually eat the raw vege scraps that you put in there they wait for the microbes and bacteria also in there to convert it all in to liquid.. so in a small worm farm like you have that activity is going to be small and slow.. so you are jumping a step and speeding things up significantly .

yes the worm water is great... i have heard of people watering it down._{, personally i don't from my bath farm... but yes use it fresh.}

what part of the world are you in >

cheers will
New Zealand

[maireid]

I'm in Melbourne, Australia - out on the N.E. edge.
Nice to have your confirmation on my preferred way of feeding the worms.
The booklet gives a recipe for fattening the worms. If you want it I'll type it out for you. Let me know.
We intend putting worms in the wicking bed soil when the numbers are higher.
The 'official' name for the system is wicking worm beds.
Here is the link: http://www.instructables.com/id/Wicking-Beds/
Cheers!
Maireid

[agatornz]

hi, wow some one on our side of the world for a change, fond memories of the five years i spent living in east melbourne a few years ago, can certianly relate to the wicker method all though i seem to have left my green thumb over there around holsglem some place ( did a dip hort there) ... i am not having any trouble fatterning my worms up in the bath farm.. plenty of food for all but perhaps you would consider poping that information up in and instructable around your own systems for others> i can only recommend the bath method, it will certianly get you massive results very fast compared to the smaller layered you currenlty havce:-) cheers will

[strmrnnr]

Do you know if the worm pee produced has a shalf life? What happens to it if it is stored in a sealed jug?

[agatornz]

no idea... i tend to use my fresh .. and if any thing all the good little critters that live in the stuff that help make it great fertiliser would probably die eventually...

[bedeboop]

Would you use the casts for your yard?? The soil I mean?

[agatornz]

hi there, yes thats the aim with a worm farm - when the worms have filled thier feeding chamber full of nice worm casts then you either feed them out of the chamber or flood it so they come to the top - (so you can keep your worms and then use the cast in the garden - same as you would with compost - nutrient rich soil) of course the bigger your worm farm the more soil is produced and the more worms live their - the more food they have the more the make baby worms;-) so my in bath farm ( also detailed here) produces cast s on a scale that make it worth while adding to the garden where as a smaller farm will take ages to do the same....

[bedeboop]

My yard is about 1/2 an acre....would it be worthwhile??? Thanks!:)

[agatornz]

Hi there, it will always be worth it ....however the speed at which worm castings are produced to "ready to be spread" is directly proptional to the size of your worm farm/farms - the number of worms - and how well they are feed. if you intended to completely build your garden beds out of worm castings then i say it would take a while and you would have to be pretty darn keen - better to construct the beds from compost and sweeten with worm casts as they come avalible... or - even better build no dig gardens( see my other instructable of that name) think of worm castings as a natural organic fertiliser .... to get any where near making a lot of castings you would first want to get familar how it all works - and then move in to the bath type farm( see my other instructable ( or even in ground bed type - not something i know about ) cheers agatornz