In an earlier post, I described how I implemented a soft plastic recycling bin at home to reduce our household waste. This second article focuses on Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) and how I diverted food organics waste from landfill with a worm farm.

Setting up the Worm Farm

Rather than purchasing a pre-made worm farm, I opted to make one using materials I mostly had at home, and following an article on building a stackable worm farm.

The total build time was about an hour and the only materials I had to purchase were:

In a clockwise direction: materials and tools, plant pots siliconed to the bottom container, the middle/top container showing the 4 L-shaped brackets and holes in the base, the L-shaped brackets

For the bottom container, I opted to use 4 old plant pots siliconed in place because these were both suitably strong to support the middle and top containers, as well as raising them up a good height of about 15cm off the bottom.

For the middle and top containers, I bolted 4 L-shaped brackets to the sides (as shown above) so that the topmost container would be raised up about 20cm to allow food organics to go underneath, maximising the space underneath.

The whole worm farm was placed in a shady spot on top of some bricks to allow the worm tea to be tapped off once it had built up.

Starting Production

Eager to start, I placed some leaf mulch in the bottom of the topmost box and placed a bit of soil from the garden on top, liberally sprinkling with water. I then added the worms, which came in a bag full of damp mulch and worm castings. I did notice some small worms crawling in the mulch, but it was impossible to determine if there were 1000, as stated on the box. More likely there was a mixture of juvenile worms and eggs in the box.

In the kitchen, I got a free kitchen caddy from my local council, specifically for FOGO recycling. You can write to your local council or call them to get a bin, or order one from their website. My council - Glen Eira Council - has caddies that rate payers can pick up from council offices. Just give them a call first to arrange.

So as not to have to clean the bin so often, I lined it with a compostable bag made specifically for lining kitchen caddies. I also resolved to empty to bin each night to prevent any smells in the kitchen.

Ready for production, I started putting coffee grounds, fruit and veg scraps from food prep and used tissues into the caddy and then to the worm farm.

Production Problems

Perhaps a bit too eager! It is always best to read available literature first, before rushing headlong into something! I’ve included some resources at the bottom of this page which I found useful.

The first thing I noticed that didn’t look right was the small flies and smells coming from the worm farm. A worm farm is not supposed to have either flies or smells - this is a sign of there being too much food, which the worms cannot eat, so it starts to rot, attracting the flies.

There was also a bit of mould growing on some fruit at the top - again a sign of there bring more food than the worms can eat.

Getting Back on Track

I removed out the mouldy fruit and then covered the rest of the food with damp shredded paper. A covering of paper is supposed to block flies and air away from the food underneath, reducing fly numbers and slowing decomposition of the food. _ These days, not many people read the paper in printed form, but if you have a home shredder you can empty it’s contents into the worm farm. _

I then left the worm farm for a month, checking every week to see whether things were improving.

After a few weeks the smell disappeared and it was replaced with a nice earthy one. Digging under the top layer, a lot more (and larger) worms were visible and, though there were still a lot of fruit flies, it looked like things were starting to improve.

I started adding a handful of food organics each week to ensure the worms had something fresh to eat. The shredded paper had become very soggy, so I dug it in to the lower layers a bit, knowing the worms would eat it.

Still the flies persisted!

Getting Rid of Flies

I tried lots of different ways of getting rid of the flies. Shredded paper worked to a point, but soon turned very soggy in the damp environment of the worm farm.

Next I tried pea straw mulch. This is great for keeping down weeds and retaining moisture in the garden, as well as being compostable. Unfortunately, it did not get rid of the flies either, as they could still move between the top of the straw mulch and the material underneath using the gaps between the mulch.

The pea straw mulch barrier (left) and the more effective soil barrier (right)

I reasoned that a more impenetrable barrier such as soil may block the flies from being able to get to the food organics below, while still allowing worms to migrate upwards to the box above. This had a definite impact with the number of flies immediately reducing by about 50%, more so as the weight of the soil compacted down, although the flies did not disappear completely.

With the soil barrier in place, I left the lid off for the best part of a day, allowing the wind to coax any last remaining flies away from their dark, damp source of food. At the end of the day all the flies had gone. I replaced the lid and checked again the next day to confirm that they had not returned.

Now that the flies were gone, I started putting in food organics again, this time making sure not to overfeed the worms. So far, so good - the flies have not returned and the worms are able to process the material I give them before it has a chance to rot.

Conclusion

While better awareness of the links between natural resource usage such as water and animal feeds and the food that we consume will go some way to helping reduce the amount of food that is wasted, a home worm farm is a simple, yet practical and effective way of reducing the amount of food organics that goes to landfill.

It is best to start your worm farm slowly - read literature on the Internet, or speak to someone who already has a worm farm to get ideas on how best to start production. Remember, that it takes time for the worms to settle in and get up to full production capacity, much like it takes us time to get up to speed in a new job and become effective.

Resources