Question 1

What can I do about slugs in my wormery?

Accepted Answer

Slugs can be a challenge in your wormery so good to address them

Food Competition: Slugs do compete with worms for food resources within the wormery. Significant numbers of slugs can reduce the efficiency of your composting process by consuming a large portion of the organic material intended for worms.
Competition for Food: Larger slugs may predate on worm eggs and juveniles, potentially reducing worm populations over time.
Balance: A few slugs might not pose a substantial issue and can contribute to decomposition. However, an overabundance can disrupt the internal ecosystem of your wormery.
Disease and Parasites: Slugs can carry diseases and parasites that may not affect them but could impact worms or the plants where the compost is used.

Action:

It’s a good idea to check your wormery at night, to gauge slug population and activity.
Directly removing slugs can be effective for managing small populations.
Putting the legs in water or using copper tape can prevent slugs from entering the wormery.
Avoiiding excessive moisture can help deter them so adding a layer of cardboard is helpful.

Question 2

When should I add the next tray to my Wormery?

Accepted Answer

Assuming you are adding your food scraps every couple of days as you lift the moisture mat you will see the worms working just below the surface. (If you have to dig down to find worms you need to ease up on the food addition as you don’t want waste building up without the worms having time to process it.) As the waste gets consumed by the worms the volume reduces and it’s processed into black gold (worm casts) and liquid (which you will use as liquid feed). This means as you fill each tray it sinks at quite a rate so the time to add a new tray on top is when the tray the worms are working on is just about full and when the bottom of the next tray will sit on the compost below. At this point you take off the moisture mat, add the next tray and some waste and replace the moisture mat which always sits on top of the freshest waste.

Don’t worry if the worms don’t appear to move up into the next tray for a few weeks – as long as there are no gaps between the trays and you can see flecks of compost on and around the top tray all will be well. After all worms do not know about trays so as long as they are working on the compost just below the surface all will be well. Just occasionally it’s worth checking that no gaps have occurred between the trays where the compost has sunk as this will mean the worms have more of a challenge to get up and down between trays. If there is a gap – add a bit of waste into it to fill it in.

Question 3

How Much Waste Can I Add To My Worm Composter?

Accepted Answer

Volumes of Waste

Question 4

My worm bin has fruit flies - what should I do?

Accepted Answer

Composting is indeed a complete ecosystem but flies don’t need to be tolerated.

The best product for dealing with them is our DE powder

or to sort it inhouse

Make your own fly trap. This can be as simple as setting a little jar containing a mixture of red wine vinegar and dish soap on your counter. Within a day or two, you will start to notice a collection of dead little flies floating on top. If you’d like to try other trap methods, consider making a paper funnel that will invite fruit flies down into the vinegar but make it nearly impossible to fly back out.

Question 5

Why am I not getting any worm juice?

Accepted Answer

Usually a lack of worm juice is one thing… You are not adding enough waste into your wormery. After all 96% of vegetable waste is water and so if you are adding waste there will be liquid draining. It’s not good to add a glut of waste at once for your worms – they need regular feeding so adding waste every couple of days will work best for your worm and your liquid feed production.

Question 6

What is the problem with woodlice in your wormery

Accepted Answer

Woodlice, also known as sowbugs or pillbugs, are crustaceans that are commonly found in damp environments, such as gardens and compost piles. While they are not harmful to the worms or the composting process in a wormery, they can be a nuisance. They can consume some of the food scraps intended for the worms, and their presence may indicate that the wormery is too moist and not draining properly.

Additionally, an excessive population of woodlice in your wormery may indicate that the wormery is overcrowded and not receiving enough oxygen, which can lead to anaerobic conditions and unpleasant odours.

If you find that you have a problem with woodlice in your wormery, there’s a few things you can do:

Reduce the moisture in the wormery by adding more bedding material or by adjusting the ventilation.

For more help with your wormery and frequently asked questions pop on over to https://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/pages/wormery-faqs. Or if you’re keen to get started or order a wormery please visit https://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/collections/worm-composting

Question 7

What to do if there’s white mould growing in my bokashi bin?

Accepted Answer

This is good news. The white mould is actually a fungi and shows that the food waste is fermenting rather than putrefying. Fermentation is precisely what you want in your bokashi bucket. So, if you see white mould on your bokashi food waste, you can be confident that all is well in your bokashi bucket.

Question 8

Why have I got Fruit Flies in my Subpod?

Accepted Answer

Fruit flies can enter Subpod when you are adding your food waste. They can also get into the system before your food scraps are added to Subpod if there’s a loose lid.

The more thoroughly you stir your food waste into the bedding, the less likely you will have a problem with fruit flies and other insects. If you add more moist bedding (carbon), it’s easier to bury the food waste thoroughly. Make sure that the larger holes on the sides of your Subpod are below the soil line in your garden bed.

Any fruit fly larvae that finds its way into the Subpod will slowly diminish over time if the above techniques are used.

Question 9

What can be composted in Subpod?

Accepted Answer

You can compost a lot more in Subpod than in other worm farm systems. You can compost food scraps, including citrus, onions, and after four months of active use, even small quantities of meat, fish, dairy, and spicy foods.

Carbon items such as paper and cardboard, lawn and garden clippings, and a whole lot more can be composted in Subpod. You CANNOT compost non-organics such as plastic, tin cans, cigarettes, and such.