While we are waiting for Charlotte to farrow let’s make a worm farm in the garden. Worms are a gardeners friend. They improve the fertility of your garden, they improve soil structure and ultimately they will improve drainage. I do have a worm farm in the basement but I also make summer worm farm ditches in the gardens, especially close to plants that will benefit from the additional nutrients in a few months. Like tomatoes!
Firstly dig a trench between your plants. Not too close to the plants though. There will be green matter and roots are not overly fond of green matter. You can also dig this trench around the outside of your garden. My trench is about 8 inches deep but you can go deeper if you have more scraps. There is a bit of competition for left overs here except for coffee grounds, the worms love coffee grounds. Like all worm farms make sure you feed them a balanced meal.
Every day add your kitchen scraps and cover up. Begin at one end and stack a fresh pile in each day. Do Not Sprinkle the greens into the ditch. Lay the piles down like standing bricks moving slowly along the trench. Does that make sense?
Remember that Sister Delphina dug little trenches and put in eggs shells, banana peels and tea leaves for the roses. Well, this is an extension of that idea. Cover that section of composting scraps completely with soil and if you have been mowing – top with some grass clippings too. Little by little fill along the whole trench with your green compost, covering with soil as you go. We don’t want it drying out. And the soil helps it decompose too.
The worms will very quickly migrate to the fresh compost and begin their work. As you add more matter every day, they will work their way down the trench. When you water the garden let some soak into your trench. Not too much, it needs to be as moist (sorry Roger) as a wrung out dish rag. Because I have spare worms in the basement I scoop in some compost worms too just to speed the process up. The worms do stay around, they may migrate out if it gets dry but if you keep filling and adding nice big heaps of vegetative matter, as you work your way down the trench, they will stay with you, breed and soon you will have the most amazing soil heaving with worms. The other way to speed the process up is to chop the scraps up and mix them about before burying. Big pieces do take longer to turn into compost. It goes without saying that you will not put meat or dairy in here.
And there you are, your very own worm farm in your garden. And there is no shot for the finished product as it is hidden in your garden. No smell, no flies, no unsightly compost heap in your tiny back yard. The work is being done underground. And all those nutrients have been returned to the soil and straight to the roots of your chosen plants.
Our cherries are beginning to ripen and it is looking like a bumper crop. I see sweet cherry pie in the near future.
The roses above the gate to Stalkers Garden have the most divine scent.
The unDaily view.
I popped out to the barn before I started this post and Charlotte grunted good morning from the winter quarters. Who knows where she will farrow. She hates it if I close her in but is showing no signs of making a nest yet, sleeping somewhere different every night. Three full days to go, if she is on time and pigs often are. Plenty of time.
And now off to work for me.
You all have a lovely day. See you tomorrow.
your friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
49 responses to “How to make a Worm Farm in your garden.”
Brilliant idea – invisible (when covered in) vermiculture!
good morning miss c., what kind of worms do you have? and where did you get them from? very interested in all kinds of different worm things =) will have to try this as soon as we move to germany this winter.
Worms rule 🙂 Celi you can also add corrugated cardboard sheets and straw and manure – it all works. My garden has not had any commercial fetilizers or pesticides etc for 5 years – the worms feed it and the vermicompost seems to act as a insect repellent too!
I have an ice cream question. When you make ice cream do you use raw eggs and raw cream and just mix it all together and freeze – or do you make a ‘custard’ and use an ice cream machine?
counting down with Charlotte … Laura
I make a custard (using honey instead of sugar) and have an icecream machine.. do you want the recipe> I also have a recipe for a chocolate mousse using raw eggs, it is to DIE for! in fact i will have to make it today, now that i have mentioned it! I will look it up.. c
Please can I have the recipe too??
absolutely, i shall! c
Marvelous idea, C! And a great way to rejuvenate a bed without having to leave it bare for a season…
Totally jealous of the cherries. They seldom perform well up here (although a few growers try)…Apples are looking like a bumper crop, though!
Your soil looks just gorgeous Celi!!! We have been amending our Ozark rock-soil for two years now with bought soil and lots and lots of compost, and it is finally looking like what rich garden soil should look like!!! Great idea about worm farming with compost right in the garden!!! Sending calming energies to both you and Charlotte! 🙂
Such a good idea. My city garden is too small and every square inch is in too constant use to allow this, but I’ve got three large composters going simultaneously on the side of the house. What I demand of my garden just would not be possible without loads of organic matter. I also compost b/w newspaper, old cotton/wool.natural material, cardboard, anything organic. I don ‘t drink coffee but Sbux will give you all the left-over coffee grounds that you want…in sexy silver bags too, and there are three within walking distance of my house. Some days the side of my house smells very skunky (in that Sbux burnt coffee way without the neighbourhood skunks coming for a visit). 🙂 Have a lovely day C. Am all anxious for nesting and baby piglets over here! 🙂
Any compost is good compost. You can imagine how worn out our reclaimed soil is so our mountains of compost are never enough. One day though. Years of intensive cropping is pretty hard on the earth. This worm farm idea is great for resting and rejuvenating soil too. Isn’t it great about coffee grinds. I bet you are like me and have no plant or paper in your rubbish bins at all… c
So true C, not a shred of paper or plant material, or plastic or tin cans. It almost all gets recycled somehow here. 🙂 I’m so proud of that and of this very green city I live in. Just now trying out food waste recycling on a weekly basis. The city has set up a pickup for food waste. But with bears and coyotes here it’s a little time consuming. Still, good for the earth. 🙂
Love the idea but nowhere to do it in our little courtyard. I shall think instead on the Edict of Worms of 1521 in which the Catholic Church and Charles V condemned Martin Luther for not being a worm.
God God. I shall have to look that one up. Extraordinary.. c
ooh sweet cherry pie!! I have a serious craving now…
Soon soon, John is the cherry pie maker in the family so all i have to do is supply the cream! c
Great post! I shall do this as I have a HUGE plastic compost bin but I forget to keep it wet or in my case inches of rain have fallen and I forgot to take the lid off too busy I guess 🙂
I watch my Rugosa roses grow by 3′ in less than a year they love their daily coffee grounds and banana peels when I am following my WW diet properly 🙂
And those plastic bins are so DEEPLY unattractive, though useful for many people I am sure! The nuns taught me lots about growing roses, I so wish I was in a climate that would allow the big lush ones .. but my little red root stock roses have the perfume so i am happy about that! c
Planted my first scraps 20 min. ago after making a sald for lunch 🙂 Thanks so much>
I did the black plastic high dome as I really do not want to deal with SNAKES 🙂 Everywhere I turn I see one 🙂
i am so lucky. before i created my gardens, nothing had ever been planted here. the soil is rich and dark and wonderful. everywhere i dig each spade of dirt is filled with worms. i can’t wait for piglets!
You are lucky, worms are the best indicator of healthy soil.. your garden is so beautiful too, have you been getting some rain? I shall pop over today and catch up! c
Well, I’ll be! That’s all there is to it? I never knew this and will begin as soon as I eat my next banana and have my next cup of tea. Thanks for the info.
This worm farm idea is brilliant… never thought of doing that… great..
I bet Charlotte would be out helping with the worm farm if she weren’t so full of babies 😉
Thanks for the thought Miss C. What an easy way to compost…. Question; what are the tile like things surrounding your tomatoes? And the reason for them?….have a lovely day!
Thosee are enormous hundred year old tiles that we saved from a field. the farmer was hauling them out with a digger and replacing them with plastic .. there is even a date on each one, they are our prizes. We have terrible winds out here in the spring, so John starts all his tomatoes in the tiles, then he can mound up the compost around the stem, after a while he slides the cage around the tile, and the tomato grows straight up the center and the tomato cages never fall over. We were lucky to find them those big round ones are rare as hens teeth.. c
Your soil is so beautiful and rich looking…all that goodness from the farmy sure makes a difference and I’ll bet your worms are fat as can be, too. Never heard of this, but may give it a try!