The Worms Are Dead – Long Live The Worms
If you’ve been following my journey for any length of time, you’ll know that back at the end of January I bought myself a wormery in which I have been putting much of my organic waste. It is with sadness that I must report the death of my worms, may they rest in peace.
I will not be giving up on this though, after the Easter bank holiday weekend I’ll be buying some more worms and starting afresh because you know what they say, if at first you don’t succeed, try try try again.
I am not even sure what went wrong but I think it might be something to do with the hot week we had recently. This weekend I realised that for about an hour a day the wormery sits in direct sunlight in my kitchen and it might have been an extreme of temperature that caused the worms to die out.
Apparently you shouldn’t let the wormery get too wet either, but I had been noticing a lot of condensation around the lid whenever I took it off. The temperature and moisture content meant that the food waste rotted a lot quicker than before and again I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or not.
I also don’t know if I mixed up the composting waste regularly enough because when I dug around to try and find some live worms this weekend I realised that the material had become quite compact and was stuck together in big clumps. I don’t know whether this caused a lack of oxygen for the worms or maybe it even prevented them from moving about freely but it can’t have helped.
There is also the possibility that I overfed the worms in the initial stages although I don’t think this is the case because they lasted almost 2 months and I reckon they had even started to breed because I saw worms of all different sizes towards the end.
Starting From Scratch
I need to contact Original Organics who sold me the wormery and ask their expert opinion on what went wrong. I suspect they will come to the same conclusions but what I really want to know is what I do next.
There is still a lot of good quality soil in the wormery but also a fair bit of food that is now rotting of its own accord. I think I’ll have to remove the food, leaving just the soil behind but again I’ll ask the experts.
I am determined to get this right because I have found my regular bin has had virtually no smell attached to it while the wormery has been up and running and it is obviously far better for the environment too.
When I get things up and running again I’ll let you all know.
For now, don’t let my failure put you off getting a wormery – mistakes happen and I’ve obviously made my fair share with my worms but I’ll learn from them and get it right next time.
Chief writer and editor on Green Steve. Blogging since 2011, Steve likes to delve into a wide number of topics.
11 Responses to “The Worms Are Dead – Long Live The Worms”
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Can’t help except to suggest you ask Helen Yemm from the Gardening section of the Daily Telegraph; she’s fantastic!
Commiserations for your worms Greensteve.Glad to hear you’re starting up again! I look forward to hearing further adventures with the worms. thanks for keeping us posted and best of Luck this time round!
Thanks greenecobear, I’m sure I’ll get it right this time around…who knew keeping worms would be so tricky?
hello
I think you will always have problems with this type of bin.
There is no air flow as it comes with a tiny brass vent in the lid and thats it.
I tried unsucessfully with this same bin and went through three sets of worms before I eventually gave up.
I even drilled holes all the way round but it never worked.
best of luck though !
Thanks for dropping by Deidre, I hope I can make it work somehow and will be contacting the sellers of the wormery to get their advice so watch this space and I’ll be sure to give regular updates when I get my next batch of worms. Failing that, I may try an indoor compost bin.
GreenSteve
Good luck green steve
I eventually bought a stacking wormery from wormcity, which works really (you get heaps more worms as well)
It wouldn’t fit in your kitchen though !!
Deidre
Hi.my worms are all dead.i have exactly your type of wormery and exactly the same thing seems to have happened. Over feeding? Rotten food? Air flow? Have
u had any more success?
I’ll be honest Gabrielle, I have been so busy recently that I haven’t got around to starting again. I think the main issue was the direct sunlight that it was sitting in for part of the day which meant that it got too hot and too moist – did you have much condensation around the lid when you lifted it off? And when you had the lid off, were there lots of worms around the top as if they were trying to escape?
Yes. Exactly that. I tried to protect them from sunlight but i’mnot there all day so perhaps a bit reached them in the afternoon. Original organics sent me a new batch and I did not overfeed this time and put in lots of cardboard and frequently went in with a rubber glove to stir up oxygen.nevertheless the whole batch have died again. I feel terrible. There was a bit of sun this afternoon when I looked, and I’ve been away 3 days but I think it’s been grey and rainy, so I can’t see how they cooked. Perhaps I should put the bin in a big cardboard box to protect from sun….
Almost certainly the heat, Steve. Same happened to me; moved the wormery into the shade, and they’ve been fine since.
Another thing to look out for is water accumulating at the bottom of the wormery, always make sure it’s drained off, and check if you don’t seem to get any juices for a while, because the tap could be blocked!
Also, add torn-up cardboard regularly, they love it, and it keeps the moisture balance right (condensation is fine, so long as you are draining regularly).
De-composition does increase during hot spells, shouldn’t do any harm so long as the other factors are right.
Top-tip: to get started as quick as you can, get as many worms as you can at first, and add a nice bed of garden compost to get them started…
Good luck!
Thanks for the fantastic advice Ellis, I’m certainly going to heed all your advice once I get back up and running.