A decade ago, if you had told someone that you were going to start worm farming you would have been met with some raised eyebrows and probably a bit of discomfort. These days, worm-farming has become all the rage, particularly amongst those who are trying to live an organic diet and those who are trying to do so via self-sustainable means like growing their own produce.
Now if you’re thinking that this sounds like a whole lot of effort and wondering whether you could get equivalent results from buying some compost from your local gardening store, you’d be mistaken.
So why should you start a worm farm?
Worm farming allows you to recycle your organic waste directly into compost that you can use in your garden, using a process that is known as vermiculture. As worm eat your organic scraps, they excrete waste, also known as worm castings, which is a wonderful organic fertilizer (one of the best that you can use for your garden). They also produce worm tea, which is the liquid concentrate of worm compost/casings. Most worm farms you can buy has a drainage hole/tap from which worm tea can flow out.
I’m here to tell you the 5 top advantages of worm farming:
- Worm farming saves you money, because you don’t need to buy fertilizers or pesticides. You can even earn money by selling worm tea or worm castings if you are so inclined!
- The wonderful process of vermiculture means that worm castings have a much higher number of microorganisms than what you would find in good quality compost that you can buy at the shops.
- Feeding your organic waste to your worms is much better for the environment compared to disposing of it in landfill. Disposing of food scraps by throwing it into the garbage (which ultimately finds its way into landfill) creates greenhouse gasses (methane specifically) which is bad for the environment. So, by creating a worm farm and disposing of your food scraps to them you’re doing your bit for the environment and helping slow down global warming.
- Worm farms are extremely low maintenance – you’d be surprised how little attention your new pets require once you’ve set them up. All you need to do is feed them every so often with your organic food scraps and they’ll be good to go!
- It’s a great way to introduce children and young adults to gardening and genuine recycling initiatives. Once they get over their initial reservations about these crawly little things you’ll find that kids absolutely love engaging with the worm farms! It makes them feel like they have a genuine purpose in looking after another living organism, and they will over time learn the value of sustainability initiatives and recycling.
Cool tips!