I am embarking on my new hobby as a small-time worm farmer
on our inner-Sydney apartment courtyard. I have bought a tough, opaque $65
plastic worm farm, which stands almost as high as my hips but was lightweight
enough to bring home on the bus from the council-run Watershed sustainability
shop in Newtown.
Then I spent 20 minutes with my hands in water, breaking up
the supplied coir-fibre brick from a Sri Lanka coconut plantation, which
will be my new slithery friends’ moist bed. Wazza the cartoon worm on the
package smiled as I soaked: he looked resplendent in overalls, straw hat and
carrying his pitchfork, declaring it’s “fun to recycle”.
I can withstand my urbane friends’ wry reaction to my
wriggly visitors given that, of the 234 kilograms of household waste on average
each of us throws out a year, almost half is food. Rather than rot away in
landfill, much of that food could be converted to fertiliser.
At first, I stack two of the three rectangular black buckets
on top of each other – one working tray with a perforated base above, and a
collector tray below complete with a tap to deliver, ahem, “worm
juice” for the pot plant and apartment common garden.
In six weeks, I’ll be adding a second storey with a
perforated base and encouraging my worms to move upward, and from the vacated
first tray I will collect the worm castings – horticulturist-speak for worm poo,
rich in fertilising nutrients.
In the heart of Redfern, the gardener and worm-seller Graeme
Endean lifts the lid of one of the nine worm farms in his backyard: beneath a
layer of wet newspaper, his worms are munching away on cooked and raw fruit and
vegetable scraps, coffee grinds and vacuum-cleaner dust.
The slight, white-haired and passionate permaculturist, who
once lived on a commune near Wauchope – he left because “I found it a bit
hippie-ish” – had even thrown in an organic chicken he had used to make
stock. The worms will eat all but the chook’s thighbone – though meat, he
cautions, is mostly unsuitable for worm farms, given the potential for odour
and vermin.
Some say you should avoiding feeding worms acidic fruit and
onion, but Endean insists they are not so fussy. I’m inclined to take the word
of an ecologically-minded man who only puts out a half-filled small green bin
of rubbish to be collected every six to eight weeks.
Some new worm-farm owners have trouble understanding when
and how to swap their trays over, so Endean has been drawing a prototype
all-in-one rotating worm farm that he hopes he might eventually sell to cafes,
which would require only the turn of a lever to change trays.
Worm farms might one day be chi-chi enough to move indoors
given Endean’s vision of a “funky Japanese chrome design”. Until
then, the retail plastic worm farm – or home-made contraptions consisting of
boxes – are consigned to outdoors or perhaps laundries, given their utilitarian
look can be a jarring contrast to slicker, flashier appliances.
I take my 1000 worms home and tip them into my worm farm,
and our jack russell-maltese cross, Oscar, looks at me quizzically. I have this
sudden visual of coming home from work and finding the farm tipped over and
Oscar with worms dangling from his scruffy face. But the worm farm is sturdy.
I start small with my worm farm scraps: chopped banana peel,
a camomile tea bag, some strawberry tops and the grease paper insert from an
olive oil container.
That night, I cannot resist lifting the lid. There is so
much movement at the station. This worm mogul is open for business.
Graeme Endean runs
afternoon courses in his backyard on permaculture, waste reduction, reducing
food miles to lower your carbon footprint and advanced worm farming. Light
organic lunch is served. Inquiries 93180157
Source: www.smh.com.au/news/environment/the-dirt-on-wonder-worms/2008/06/10/1212863646387.html