What is the Worm Factory?
Think of it as a condo for worms,
that takes very little space. The condo
is always under construction as the worms eat their way up through the
floors. As the lower floors run low on food
for the worms, they work their way to the upper floors to find more food. The lower levels will become full of
beautiful, rich compost and the worms will have moved out. The condo floors will be ready to be restacked
to the worms get to exercise and eat their way back to the top.
How do you prepare for
you new tenants?
A good landlord provides its tenants
(worms) with some nice bedding where they can relax eat and reproduce. The bedding can be shredded newspaper, aged horse
manure, coconut coir, grass clippings, you get the idea.
The condo should be located on a
small flat piece of real estate in a shaded outdoor area, in the garage or even
in your kitchen/laundry room. When the worms
move they will take a couple days to get used to their surroundings. You will want to give them a little food to
start but not too much. As they adjust,
you can add more food.
How do you feed your worms?
Feeding is easy. You can feed them with vegetable peelings,
table scraps, even shredded junk mail, or cardboard. The smaller pieces you give them the faster
they convert it into nutrient-rich compost.
I have seen people use the blended and make a think soup for their worms,
but it isn’t necessary. The key is NO
MEAT or DAIRY.
How does it compare to
the other worm composters?
The Worm Factory's® is unique. The multi-tray stackable design makes it very
efficient. As stated before the worms start
in the lower bins and work their way up to where the food is. The secret is that you only add food to the
highest bin. As the worms leave, the
lower bins to move up they leave behind some fantastic compost. When it is ready, all you do is take the top
bin off and stack them in order. When
you get to the bottom bin, you remove it and restack (in the same order) the
remaining bins. Use the compost and you
are ready to start over with the empty bin to make a new top floor of your
condo.
While you can make large tub worm
composters, they are messy and get very heavy.
You will be touching worms as you try to separate them from the compost
they live in. The Worm Factory trays
weigh about 10 - 12 pounds when full.
What about the worm
tea or the liquid produced?
This is another great benefit of the
using the official Worm Factory®. All
the moisture produced filters down the trays to the collection tray below the
bottom bin. The Worm Factory comes with
a spigot in the collection tray. Put a
container under the spigot and all the liquid pour out. This liquid aka “leachate” is full of
wonderful nutrients. Make sure that you
always dilute the liquid by at least 7 parts of water. Leachate and worm tea are too concentrated or
strong to use on plants and it needs to be diluted.
Now officially the leachate is not
worm tea. Worm tea is made by adding
some of the finished compost to water and soaking it, like sun tea. I have seen 2 liter bottles of worm tea sold
in home improvement store for $8. It is
a great asset for your plants. In
reality, after buying one bottle myself, I decided I would just get a worm
composter and make my own.
Is this cost efficient?
Absolutely. After your initial investment, it won’t cost
you any more then the water you use. Like
I said, you won’t need to buy worm tea and you might stop buying commercial fertilizers. You are using food & newspaper that have
been discarding anyway.
Any other info?
Here are a few things I learned
while using my worm factory.
·
Pets didn’t bother
it. There wasn’t any smell to attract
them. It is not air tight because it needs
some circulation, but the trays and lid tight nicely together.
·
Worms like it to be
dark and moist (not wet) but mine would start to dry out a little. I just added water to the top and it seemed
to keep the worms happy and increase my liquid in the bottom, which I thought
was a plus.
·
One time the ants
found it. I simply good some petroleum
jelly and put an inch band of it around each leg. The ants couldn’t get past it and
disappeared.
·
Horse manure is good
bedding but because some horse feed contains things that aren’t good for worms,
it is best to use aged manure.
·
I didn’t ever have to
touch a worm. That was a plus in the beginning. After awhile worms no longer bothered me and
I thought of them as pets.
The Worm Factory advantages:
- Produce year round (Temperature should be from 45 – 85 degrees. Keep in the shade if warm or garage or
basement if warm or cold)
- Bedding kit to help you get started
- Odor Free (don't use meat or dairy)
- Includes a worm bedding kit to get you started
- 3 trays. (Expands
up to 7 trays. Additional trays sold
separately.)
- Available colors: black, green & terracotta
- Easy to assemble and manage
- “worm tea” collector tray and spigot
- Easy-to-use instructional booklet
- Lid has “Quick-Tips” for easy reference
- Can hold four to five thousand worms
- Worms can eath up to 3 – 6 pounds per week
- 10 year warranty on parts and workmanship
- Made in the U.S.A. from post-consumer recycled
materials
Specifications:
·
Made form high-quality
recycled plastic
·
Weight: 12 pounds
·
Measures 16" x
16" x 21" for a 3 tray system.
o
Add 3.5" in
height for each additional tray.
Please indicate your
color preference:
Black, Dark Green or Terra Cotta
Baker Online Shopping
offers:
·
Free shipping to continental
USA – Must have a street address, no P.O. Boxes
Alaska & Hawaii shipping rates on request
·
Delivery to Canada and
other countries may be possible, please send complete address so that we can
find a shipping cost.
·
Packages ship in 2-3
days after payment is received.
14 – day return policy. 
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