“Renovating your bathroom?” people asked as we crammed an unwanted bathtub into the back of our tiny Honda Civic. No, we’re doing something much more fun than that! We’ve just finished making a bathtub worm farm system for our wriggling backyard buddies. We’re keen to get the worm castings cranking, and this bathtub will produce plenty of castings, in addition to the ‘can of worms’ system we have out the front. We’ve found the small ‘can of worms’ system has been perfect for starting out.

Worm farms are fantastic for recycling food scraps, and they produce the ultimate soil improver – rich, black worm castings. Worm manure beats all other animal manures hands down, and it has no odour, so your neighbours will love you as they won’t be running to shut their windows when you spread it around!

You need to introduce ‘compost worms’ to your systems, as the worms you find in the garden are way too laid back to be munching through lots of food scraps, unlike the hard working compost worms. About 1,000 worms (250grams) is a good amount to start out with, but it depends on your set up.

A brilliant, practical book about starting out with worm farming is Jade Woodhouse’s ‘Worm Farming – Our Saviour For The Soil (www.simplynaturalorganic.com). There are a few local worm farmers in Wollongong, who sell worms and worm casting – we’ve found Max Norden from Wormifert (0414 733 823) really helpful.

Happy worm farming and thanks wormies!