Vermicomposting: How a DIY worm farm can compost food scraps, paper or whole kangaroos

Insects. I have some.

I divided my time between a small inner-city apartment in Sydney, Australia, and a wooded property, which was a farm four hours to the south, before it was abandoned in the 1970s.

They are opposites in almost every way – one is thrilled by the incessant noise of the big city, while the other moves to the tunes of the jungle: kookaburra choruses, deafening cicadas and, at night, the powerful hoots of owls and the purring, zombie-like sounds of brushtail possums. But one thing both properties have in common is that they each have a cranking worm farm. The one in the farm is very big and deals with the organic waste of an entire household, while the one in the city is small enough to fit on the verandah and is easy to install – suitable for anyone.

On the farm, I continue to let nature take its course on the land and use it as a place for peace and quiet. But below ground, it’s busy. There is a huge colony of insects, inside a 4000-litre tank buried on the property, into which all the mine’s sewerage and dirty water is pumped. The worms convert the mud into nutrient-rich juices and excrete substances, which slowly drain, filter into a series of filled porous trenches and then drain through the soil into the surrounding forest.

The giant worm farm in the woods has a lid and it’s possible to vary the worms’ diet a bit by adding my compost and weeds, as well as the occasional kangaroo, possum or bird carcass I find on the property, to the daily fare of toilet waste and shower water. My rule of thumb is that if it was once alive, its final resting place is a worm farm.

When I take off the lid and look into that black hole of disintegration, I’m always amazed at how quickly whatever was in there disappears. A dead, 50 kg, male eastern gray kangaroo (macropus giganteus) is barely detectable after a week, and invisible to my flashlight after a month. Indeed, the worm farm is now a multicultural ecosystem featuring frogs, spiders and fly larvae, thriving on the nutrient-rich moisture that would do the Daintree Rainforest on Australia’s north-east coast proud.

And yet, even after more than eight years of being a storehouse of all things organic – I’ve driven wheelbarrows full of organic matter into that insatiable wormhole – its stable state seems to be no more than a quarter full. No matter how dangerous a dead kangaroo or maggot bird is, I have never noticed a foul smell coming from my worm farm when I throw it away. This is no amateur-hour operation – the local shire council comes by every two years to inspect that it is officially compliant.

On the day the worm farm was installed in 2018, I was invited by the plumber to ceremoniously release the worms into their new home – a small bag of tiger worms (Eisenia fetida), a species originally named in Europe in 1826 and which has become an international superstar of global compost.

independent earthworm researcher robert blakemore The species is said to survive in temperatures ranging from -2˚C to 40˚C, and can survive the loss of approximately two-thirds of its body moisture and, reportedly, being submerged in water for periods of up to 6 months.

He argues that there is no other species on Earth that has provided such a vital service to humanity, and that a single compost worm can process the equivalent of their body weight per day. It’s no wonder that a dead kangaroo can disappear within a few weeks.

I love the fact that everything that goes into that worm farm is decomposed by worms into the various basic ingredients of life and then slowly seeps into an ancient red gum forest to be taken up and recycled into the ecosystem. That worm farm is my idea of ​​a literal pearly gate – through which everything is recycled into immortality. That’s why I tell my kids, “When I die, leave me there” so they’ll be included for the rest of their lives. For me, heaven means becoming food for my forest. Instead, if I were cremated and turned into a handful of nameless dust to be placed in a jar, I would be really upset.

I have an elderly chocolate border collie who follows me everywhere like my personal Secret Service agent. The greatest honor I can give him, the surest way I know of to keep him forever, is to have him go through the Worm Farm Clearing House when his day comes. My daughter is not impressed by the fate of our family dog.

urban vermiculture

When I moved to the city part-time a few years ago, I brought a bag of tiger worms from a forest worm farm and used them to seed a small, commercially made home compost container that I keep in my small courtyard.

My small indoor worm farm is much more up-close and in-your-face than the giant farm. Its diameter and height are about half a metre, and it has some compartments placed vertically which can be rotated when the top is full.

Unlike the bugs on the rural property, which are meters away at the bottom of a huge dark tank, the bugs in my city are right there for easy viewing and are much more interesting. Sometimes, I just remove the lid and find myself staring at it in rapt attention, my face screwed up with surprise at how disgusting the composting process looks.

Nobody wants to see how a sausage is made and the same applies to decomposition. When you take off the lid of my urban worm farm the first thing you see are squirming, tangled worms. There are so many and they are so crumbly that it seems as if, if I stuck my hand into organic matter in various stages of decay, it would be chewed up into a stump within minutes by those nasty piranhas.

All my vegetable scraps, dog poop, dog hair (my dog’s shed) go into my apartment’s worm farm Very), egg shells, bills, tea leaves, coffee grounds – everything organic. However when Blakemore saw a photo I sent him of the contents of my worm farm, he was a little concerned about my laissez-faire approach.

“I see you have egg shells; it’s best to crush or microwave them to keep them from rotting, although these will eventually break down,” advises Blakemore. “Ditto fur. My nemesis is teabags, I doubt they’re made of plastic because they don’t rot! Plus they stick those stupid labels on bananas or avocados, too.”

He also warns that “dog feces is a problem with parasites, but worms can immobilize many of these”.

No matter how much I put into my city composter, the worms persist, but eventually, after several months, I have to lift the top cartridge, take it down and start over with a fresh, empty one. When it’s full, the contents of the first cartridge will turn into rich black soil that can be distributed among the plants in my patio.

It is a great twisting circle of life, a window to the fact that disintegration is a shuddering reminder that death awaits us all and that we live on a planet where everything is consuming everything else. The creator of the soil, the humble insect, the bringer of immortality, the processor of all that ever lived.

I think of Blakemore’s advice: “Everyone should be composting,” he says. “There is no reason not to do so, except our cardinal sins of ignorance and laziness.”

What you should consider if you want to start your own worm farm:

• Compost worms are commercially available and easy to obtain – the king of compost worms is the tiger worm (Eisenia fetida), originally from Europe, but now found globally. While you can easily purchase worms, I have given several of my friends “starter” colonies from my compost – just a small bag full of worms – and, within a few weeks, their bins were gone!
• You’d be surprised how much waste can be processed by a colony of worms, even in a relatively compact urban worm farm. These are easy to install and purchase. But if you want a form suitable for dealing with an entire household’s waste, you’ll need professional installers and plenty of space.
• I keep my urban worm farm bin out of direct sunlight. When choosing your spot outside, look for some shade, especially if you live in an extremely hot climate. It never smells – although when you remove the lid it looks like something out of a horror movie. But the long and short of it is that it is not an unpleasant thing to have around.
• My favorite things to compost are utility bills and unwanted marketing mail. (It’s best to avoid heavily colored or shiny papers.) It’s very satisfying to put things you don’t like into a worm farm and watch them turn into dirt in a week!