A wormery is a great way of recycling kitchen and small amounts of garden waste, using worms to turn this material into nutrient-rich natural compost. A sump within the wormery also holds any excess liquid produced during this process and this can be used to feed your plants too. Simply drain it with the tap, every few days, dilute it to a 1:10 ratio of water and you have a nitrogen-heavy liquid feed ready to use. Wormery composting worms are different species to the earthworms you see in your garden, which aren’t suitable, and are known as brandlings, red, manure or tiger worms. They live inside the waste in the wormery bin and thanks to big appetites and a fast metabolism, quickly break down food waste likeegg shells, vegetable peelings and tea bags and turn them into compost for your garden. For help getting started our helpful step-by-step guide explains how to set up a wormery
Worm Casts in Lawns
28.06.2024 - 15:39 / gardenersworld.com
What are worm casts?
Worm casts appear on the surface of lawns as wet strings of sludgy mud. These are the waste product (castings) of earthworms and are a sign of a good, healthy soil. Worm casts are most often seen on lawns in autumn. They can be left in place or gently brushed off when dry, and should be tolerated as part a healthy garden ecosystem.
How are worm castings made?Earthworms live in permanent vertical tunnels in the soil and draw plant detritus, such as leaf litter, into their tunnels and feed on them. In eating plant detritus they not only help break down spent plant material but ‘recycle’ their nutrients, making them available for living plants to feed from. Many species of earthworm deposit their castings underground but some, including those in the Aporrectodea and Lumbricus genera, deposit their castings on the surface of the soil.
Earthworms are therefore an essential part of the garden ecosystem, ensuring your soil is well structured, aerated, oxygenated and nutrient-rich, so that ornamental and vegetable plants can grow healthily. What’s more, earthworms are an essential part of the food chain, being a vital source of food for birds and their chicks, hedgehogs and amphibians.
Can you make your own worm castings?Because the activities of earthworms are recognised as beneficial to gardeners, you can buy or make a bespoke ‘wormery‘ that mimics the natural process of making worm castings, which you can use in potting composts and as a mulch. Most wormeries consist of a tiered system of three or four boxes into which you add newspaper and food waste, along with a colony of brandling worms, which are better suited to the closed environment of a wormery than most earthworms. Brandling, or compost worms,
Cast a Spell on Your Home with the 'Practical Magic' Aesthetic
Adam Albright
Where do we start with sowing a traditional lawn around our new-build house?
Q: We’ve just moved into our home, a new build in the countryside, and don’t have much of a budget to create a garden. We’d like to start by sowing a traditional lawn around the house, which is just a big expanse of bare soil and weeds. Any tips would be great. CB, Co Meath
Wireworms
Wireworms are the soil-dwelling larvae of the click beetle, and live predominantly in undisturbed grassland. In gardens they can sometimes cause problems by eating the roots of seedlings and older plants, as well as burrowing into root vegetables. There’s around 60 species of click beetle in the UK and only a handful of their larvae cause problems, yet all of them are a source of food source for creatures such as birds and small mammals. In general, wireworms may only be a problem in ground that has been converted from lawn or grassland into a vegetable plot, particularly when root vegetables such as potatoes are grown.
Your Lawn Boosts Your Home’s Curb Appeal More Than Any Feature
Marty Baldwin
Lawn Alternatives for the Southeast
More and more homeowners are seeking to replace their traditional lawns with ones that are easier to maintain or more environmentally responsible. It sounds straightforward enough, but choosing the right plants for a lawn can be challenging. One must consider sun exposure, expected foot traffic, moisture requirements, and situational obstacles such as clay soil and juglone fromblack walnut trees (Juglans nigra, Zones 4–9). This list aims to help Southeast gardeners choose the lawn replacement with the best chance of success for their yards.
How to Prepare Your Lawn for Flooding and Help It Bounce Back
The weather in the U.S. intensifies every year. Right now, a heat wave has sent temperatures soaring across the country while Florida is experiencing a rare flash flood emergency. And it is likely to continue being extreme: according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there is an 85 percent chance that this hurricane season will have more storms than average and, with that, more rainfall.
Should You Try "Meadowscaping" Your Lawn and Yard This Summer?
Aesthetics and style trend have taken over our interiors, and we love that trends are spreading into our outdoor spaces, too. This year, as organic decor and biophilic design continue to dominate our home decor feeds, a similar gardening trend is growing—literally.
What Should You Do With Grass Clippings After Mowing Your Lawn? An Expert Weighs In
There’s nothing like the clean lines of freshly cut grass. But, what if we told you skipping your final step of bagging those grass clippings can actually help you grow lusher, thicker grass—and at no additional cost to you? Allowing your mower to leave behind grass clippings can have a variety of benefits for your lawn.
Coping with invasive jumping worms, with brad herrick of uw-madison
THE QUESTION “What do I do about the Asian jumping worms that are destroying my soil?” has outpaced what was the most common thing I was asked, year in and year out, for decades as a garden writer—the relatively simple challenge of “How do I prune my hydrangea?”
All you need to know about the space travelling nematode: a worm like no other
Header image: Nematodes play an important role in all biological systems. Shutterstock
Eco Garden: Worm Composting
If you’ve got a small garden then you might find it difficult to find space for a conventional compost heap. A possible solution is a worm compost bin, which takes up far less space because an army of worms does most of the composting work.