What kind of worm farm should you start with?
- Aunt Plantsy
- Jul 11
- 2 min read
Our daughter had a really nice handmade, wooden worm farm and it wasn’t getting used so I thought I’d try my hand at raising worms. This was a 3-tray system with metal screen on the bottom of each tray, a wooden lid, and a wooden stand with a metal collection tray. I tried this system for almost 2 years with no success.
The bedding was usually too dry and it seemed like I was either over or under feeding the worms. They were not populating and were slowly dying off – even after about four different purchases of worms. What I think was happening was that because it was made out of wood, it was able to breathe more than a plastic worm farm and, for that reason, it dried out quickly. It was also smaller in size and filled up with food too quickly for the worms to consume, so then I would hold off on feeding, which wasn’t good either.
LESSON: There is a fine balance to feeding and moisture when raising worms.
The next worm farm that I got and am using now is a 3-tray system made out of plastic, called Can-O-Worms. https://tumbleweedgardening.com/collections/worm-farming/products/can-o-worms
It is taller so it is easier to work with than the first worm farm. It has a collector tray with 4 legs and a spigot off the collector tray that can easily drain into a bucket. The reason I got this brand is because another master gardener, who has been doing this for about 15 years, uses it with great success. Not only does it stand taller but the trays are bigger in diameter so they can hold much more than the first worm farm could, and you don’t need a table to set it on. I did order the extra tray, otherwise it comes as a 2-tray system.
These are the only two worm farms that I have had experience with. But I have seen many videos of people making worm farms out of bins or totes. I believe the similarity with those is that each bin/tote would be considered your working tray and that you would stack the totes on top of each other. You would have to puncture holes in the bottom of the totes (but not the first working tote), so that the worms could crawl up into the next bin when it was time to move up.
There are other worm towers and/or worm farms on the market as well, so you’ll need to do a little research on what will work best for you.
You want the worm farm to be somewhere inside your house or garage – so keep that in mind when thinking about size and location of where it will fit.
The next topic to be covered later is “How to begin the first tray of your worm farm.”
To view the first blog topic "Raising a worm farm and harvesting worm castings" - click here: https://www.peasbeewithewe.net/post/raising-a-worm-farm-and-harvesting-worm-castings
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