Why compost with worms? Worm composting is a simple way to recycle your organic kitchen waste. Our worms will eat your kitchen scraps and reward you with a rich valuable compost that your plants will thrive on.

Worms are actually fun and make good pets for children. They are an excellent way to help children become environmentally friendly. They are also amazing creatures. Worms can eat up to half their body weight every day! Did you know that worms have five hearts and no teeth? And they are vegetarian.

If you are a keen gardener, you will already know about the many benefits of compost. It helps in moisture retention and encourages plant growth, supports plants to become stronger and resist disease. Vermicompost is the compost created from worm farms. Organic gardeners call the worm liquid ‘liquid gold” as all garden and plants love the nutrient rich fertiliser.

Being an all-natural plant food and soil conditioner, worm compost (their discarded waste and worm tea the liquid the worms leave) you with an excellent high quality material suitable for container growing and enriching your plants.

Benefits An indoor worm farm provides people who have limited space with an effective means of recycling. It only requires minimal space, and just a little knowledge.

You’ll turn those food scraps into rich organic fertiliser for your garden, and do your bit in diverting waste from landfill.

Remember - The worms in a worm farm are different to the garden worms you find when digging in your garden. Our composting worms are called Tiger Worms and have a fantastic appetite! These worms can eat anything that was once living -including or paper!

A worm farm doesn’t smell, they don’t take up much space, and they are an efficient food processing machine!

Keeping a worm farm is fun for the whole family and a great way to get everyone involved in nurturing the environment and making your home more sustainable.

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About our Worms

We have imported direct from New Zealand, specially bred composting worms called Tiger Worms. These worms are ONLY for worm farms and do not survive anywhere else. They are not your normal garden earthworms and will die if put outside or in regular garden soil.

Congratulations on your new indoor worm farm. If you follow this guide, you and your worms will be very happy together.

HOW TO START YOUR WORM FARMFind a space in your house that has a regular temperature – our indoor worms love the consistent temperature of the house air conditioning at 23 degrees.

With your indoor worm farm, you have received a small bag of coconut peat. Spread this in the layer of the top container and put your tiger worms in. Then start collecting items for their bedding.

Bedding can be created using shredded paper, cardboard, egg carton or old leaves. The bedding will help balance the high nitrogen content in food scraps. Additional bedding should be adding every month or so. Next, it is time to give them their first feed. Cut up their food very finely and place on top of the bedding. Put the lid on.

Food scraps should be placed in the worm farm regularly and the tiger worms will eat their way through it. The frequency will vary depending on how hungry your worms are.

Sprinkle the cut up kitchen waste around the bin. For your indoor worm bin you can choose to cover with a piece of hessian to make it dark for the worms before putting the lid on.

Looking after your worms

It is important not to over-feed your worms. Only add more food when the first lot is nearly eaten. Once your worms start multiplying, you will be able to give them more food.

To help the worms get through the food more quickly, always finely chop, mash or process the food before adding it to the farm. Worms eat a variety of kitchen scraps, but some are unpleasant for them to eat take note of what they like and don’t like.

Worms will eat up to 3-4kg of your kitchen waste every week, then turn it into worm castings (rich plant food) and worm tea (liquid fertiliser).

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Shady customersMake sure you set up your worm farm in a cool, shaded spot. Remember, they don’t like the sun!

Toothless vegetariansWorms don’t have teeth or eat meat. They’ll thrive when you feed them fruit and vegetable scraps and be especially grateful if you cut their food into pieces first.

A juice and coffeeMost of us enjoy a juice and coffee in the morning – so when you’ve finished your morning routine, treat your worms to the coffee granules and the pulp from the juicer. They’ll even eat your discarded teabag. But remember, they don’t like citrus or other acidic foods, so orange pulp is a no-go.

Keep the garlic awayWorms aren’t fond of onions and garlic, so if you’re cooking up a rich Italian feast, don’t invite them to share the meal with you – and don’t throw the garlic and onion scraps their way.

Paper and egg shellsAlthough they’ll turn up their noses at strong flavours, worms love a bit of shredded paper, cardboard, and eggshells (if you crush them up).

Easy does itDon’t add too much food at once – and make sure the worm farm is well drained. They’re not good swimmers and you don’t want them to drown.

Move them aroundGet air into it with a gentle stir with your hands. Add dried leaves, mouldy leaves or mulch, and regular light sprinkles of mature compost. It accelerates the composting process.

Cover ‘em up!Not because they’re ugly – you may well become quite fond of your worms – but because it keeps the moisture in and the light out, encouraging the worms to come to the surface and feed. They like to have their worm blanket on them, damp hessian or newspaper works well. And always remember to put the lid back on!

WONDERFUL WORM FARMING TIPS

REMEMBER: Here in Qatar, the daytime

temperatures can get super hot – way too hot for worms to survive. They should always be kept indoors. Don’t ever leave us outside.

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How to be a great Worm Farmer - Here’s our top tips to get these wigglies working for you.

As time passes, the bedding, along with food waste is converted into worm manure (castings). It becomes heavier and changes to a dark brown soil-like material.

There are several ways of removing the finished compost –discover which is best for you. Here are some ideas:

The easiest method consist of removing, the top worm rich layer. Pull any worms out and put back into the bin.

Dump and Sort

Tip the entire contents of the bin onto a plastic sheet (best done outside) spread the compost out to form a layer about 100 mm thick. The worms dislike light and burrow deeper into the compost to avoid it. Slowly remove the compost until eventually you have a mass of wriggling worms which can be added back into the worm bin containing new bedding.

Only feed your worms on one side of the bin. They will all eventually move to the food source and after a few weeks you are left with the worm castings to take and use on the other side.

The "soil" that you are removing is actually finished castings.

Collecting the liquid Worm tea is the best natural fertiliser for your plants. It is far superior to chemical fertilisers, which contain pesticides and herbicides, that burn the soil and kill beneficial microbes. Worm tea adds beneficial microbes, and the microbes puts nitrogen back to the soil; making it available for plants to absorb. It’s a great way to boost your garden!

How to make worm tea. What you will need:

• A bucket of water• A handful or two of worm castings. No need to

overthink the ratio. Method

• Add worm castings to the bucket of water • Dissolve the castings overnight in the bucket of

water• Add a tablespoon of brown sugar, molasses or milk

to feed the bacteria (optional)• Your worm tea is great to use after a few days

Want the easier method? Simply, add your casting to a bucket of water, stir well to add oxygen and apply to your garden straight away! It’ll still be beneficial fertiliser.

COLLECTING AND PROCESSING YOUR CASTINGS

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HOW TO APPLY WORM FERTILISER TO YOUR GARDEN

Pour straight from the bucket onto the garden and don’t worry about covering the plant including the leaves. It’s a natural unwanted insect repellent and will help make the plants more resistant to diseases.

Castings are pH neutral, so are very safe to use with all plants. Even a small amount of castings or liquid added to soil will improve the performance of plants. Plants have evolved to uptake the nutrients created by worms – their castings are one of the most beneficial fertilisers for plants.

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TROUBLESHOOTING

Escaping wormsIf your worms seem intent on escaping, it's because something is not right in your system. Worms will attempt to flee an unhealthy or toxic environment. If you have fed your worms too much by placing an excess amount of food waste, the composting environment will heat up, and will rise to temperatures that are too hot for worms to handle. Worms hate an acidic environment. Mix the worms and bedding around to aerate it and add more ‘browns” to their food. (see poster)

OdourYour worm bin should always smell like fresh garden soil, and in fact, should produce no real odour at all. If there is a foul smell coming from your worm bin, it's a clear sign that your system is out of balance. The first and most important thing to do if you have a smelly worm bin is to gently lift up the layers of food waste and bedding, enabling air to enter the system. Remember, worm bins need oxygen.

Dig around in your bin and investigate the source of odour. If you encounter something that smells bad, remove it and dispose of it in your green waste bin or your outdoor compost heap, if you have one. If the whole surface of the worm bin smells, then gently lift to add oxygen and add a generous layer of dry shredded paper or other dry bedding to the top of the bin, and gently work some of this bedding into the lower layers. The extra carbon you add will help to balance out any excess nitrogen that's present in your system.

Tips On Good Worm Bin CareWorm bins are not difficult to maintain, but if you follow these tips, you should be supporting a healthy, productive composting environment.

Do not add water to your worm bin unless a large part of the bin material is extremely dry to the touch.

Lift up the dry shredded paper or bedding every few weeks and gently dig to the bottom of the tray, taking care not to disrupt the worms too much. If the material at the bottom of your tray or bin looks wet and smells a little, these are signs that you need to add air to your system and improve the drainage, so excess fluid has a clear path out of your bin.

Let your nose be your guide. Every time you feed your worms, lift the lid and take a big whiff. Maybe you added green waste that is producing the odour, or maybe your worm bin is becoming anaerobic. Lift up the bedding and underlying material to bring air into the system.

Also, remember to keep your worm bin in an environment with a fairly constant temperature that is neither too hot nor too cold.

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