This worm farming adventure all began because I wanted to make my own garden fertiliser; I figured if the bloke at the local market could sell “worm tea” at an exorbitant price, I could just go ahead and make my own.
I went to my local Bunnings [big hardware and gardening store in Australia] and purchased this itty bitty little worm farm, it seemed so small being flat packed in a cardboard box butas I unpacked and assembled it it grew!
It has several layers and the worms start up on the bottom layer and move their way up as they munch through the yummy kitchen waste. My worms weere donated to me by a friend who runs an organic farm/guesthouse, and let me tell you those worms were on steroids, they just went for it and multilied in no time.The whole process can take a while, and I went through a lot of learning about having a worm farm in my garage in the middle of the city.
I have grown much attached to my little wormies, no I don’t yet talk to them but I do reckon they like music!
My first mistake was to accidentally allow some meat to get into the worm farm!
I woke up one morning and went down to my garage in that “just had a cup of tea, wait for brekkie mode” when I saw the ground move, I mean it really moved. My first thought was that’s it, the worms escaped and are coming for me!
I don’t drink booze or partake in any recreational drugs so I looked a little closer, blinked hard and screamed as I stepped in a seething mass of white maggots. I am not kidding; this was for real, wall to wall wriggling white maggots!
I rescued my dog , carried him upstairs [he is a bit old and dopey] and tried to scrape the yucky mess off the bottom of my feet. Had a second cup of tea, breakfast will have to wait.
How was I going to clean up those maggots? Various thoughts went through my head, none of them very charitable towards maggots. Then unfortunately the thought hit me; maggots become flies, I started to have cold sweats, I really don’t like maggots, but flies are even more disgusting.
Maybe I could just burn them out, pour something flammable on them and torch the garage. Dumb thought but satisfying, burning the bastards out!
Aw well, just put on the gum boots and see how I could deal with this problem. I found that by using my garden hose on high, they would just all get swished outside and let them handle the traffic. There was a bit more to it than that, but I got rid of the little suckers.
The problem was with the worm farm, they all just crawled out of there like some seething white mass, and they kept on coming. Another trip to Bunnings, this time to get some lime which I spread all around the worm farm, sprinkled some on top of the lid, some on the compost, and voila, problem sorted!
The moral of the story is Never ever put any meat on your worm farm, especially not on those little farms if you don’t want it to end up a fly farm.
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