Worm Farm

Audrey and Eli enjoy a TV show called Dirtgirl. It's an Australian animated children's programme with an eco-twist. I haven't seen it myself (and I think the kids have only seen it a handful of times) but they always full of rave reviews whenever it's on.

This week Dirtgirl made a worm farm and both Audrey and Eli were desperate to tell me about the episode. We downloaded a factsheet and sought advice from existing worm farmers (at Amy's work). The recommendation was to visit Bunnings (the DIY shed) and purchase said farm from there rather than attempt to cobble together something of your own.

Dutifully two parents and two (very excited) kids set off on Saturday to embark on our worm farm venture. What none of us could believe was the array of worm farm products available. Dirtgirl had clearly hit upon something - worm farming, much to our surprise is very de rigueur. Forget your compost, get worms.

First you had to chose from (at least 6) farms - basically large plastic boxes, and then buy a box of worms - worms worked out at roughly 5c per worm! After that there was worm bedding, worm conditioner, booster packs etc etc. It's a big business.

On the long supplier list we picked up there are at least 50 suppliers of worms Australia wide, all with some humorously titled business name. Businesses included (and I'm not making these up) "Worms on Wheels", "We've got Worms", "Earthly Delights", "Early Bird Worm Marketing" and "Worm Affair". Some of the businesses remarkably are open 7 days a week and offer a 24 hour service. Note to self to ring one of them on Christmas day just to check out their claims.

We chose a pretty cool round worm farm (the company humourously titled "Can-of-Worms") and then purchased 1,000 worms which we were told was the minimum required to get us started. On the previous day I'd dug 20 or 30 earthworms out of the garden, but of course worm farm worms are completely different and much better at eating our scraps. I'd wasted my time trying to do it on the cheap.

The kids loved unpacking and setting up the farm. How long the fascination will last is anyone's guess (probably 2-3 days) and our (currently 4) guinea pigs now have competition over vegetable and food scraps (albeit, as we've found out, a competition who doesn't really devour large quantities of scraps with the voracity we'd hoped for).

Apparently though the compost they'll produce is second to none. Watch this space! We also incidentally noticed that there was no worm dealer in Canberra (other than Bunnings) so if this venture proves successful we'll have to wrack our brains for a "funny" business name.