Built to a vision, it was once just a dream of ours to have a Worm Farm that transforms waste into rich soil!
We feed our worms with raw veg waste from the kitchen, which the worms consume and their castings are supposedly the most nutritional fertiliser known to man. The liquid run off is also collected in a bucket underneath and used as a liquid fertiliser!
The worms are given rotting vegetable scraps which are covered with surrounding soil (to avoid fruit flies) and covered with damp cardboard.

In just a couple weeks the worms consume kilos of waste into Black Gold!


Harvesting and using worm castings
When you put your bare hand through that soil and find no chunks or gooeyness, consider it ready to use in the garden! It will be compact and almost black, full of rich nutrients perfect for use in vegetable gardens, flower beds and especially potted plants that are lacking nutrients.
It can be used in various ways such as adding it to holes before planting, or sprinkling a layer around plant bases.
In our system, we stop feeding a section of the wormery and naturally the worms will leave this section once the food is all eaten, and leave us with free access to the castings after around a week.
Just checking in

We check in on our red wrigglers a couple times a week especially during bad weather, and to check they have food. We give them recycled coffee grounds for a treat!
During the winter worm numbers drop but we can see below lots of new babies appear in Spring and the population will rise again.
Castings can be ordered online but we don’t see it available anywhere locally. Much better to grow your own, and get rid of some food scraps at the same time!
Design and Build
We built the Wormery to have several sections which can be closed off independently

We kick started the worm population by grabbing a few handfuls worth of worms fresh from the compost heap, and occasional extra handfuls throughout the summer. The worms have gone on to be very productive and reproduced quickly to create a huge amount of workers! Since they can eat their body weight in food in a day, we’re able to get rid of scraps from the kitchen and the garden and know the wormies will transform it for us.
The depth of each segment is around the same depth of the local ground here on the land. We have around a foot of soil that lays on pure chalk here in the south of England which brings its own challenges.
- Autumn In the PolytunnelThe nights become chilly and the mornings frosty, the polytunnel has had another hot summer and is finally cooling down. … Continue reading Autumn In the Polytunnel
- Polytunnel Progress: Building a Heated Seed BedGoing into 2020 we decided that a heated seed bed inside the polytunnel would be amazing for starting seeds early … Continue reading Polytunnel Progress: Building a Heated Seed Bed
- Growing Dahlias from Seed and overwintering tubersOne of our latest plant obsessions is the Dahlia, since growing them from seed and realising just how easy it … Continue reading Growing Dahlias from Seed and overwintering tubers
- 2019 Growing: Chilli and Sweet Pepper ReviewT’was a hot summer here in the south of England, and our first with the new polytunnel We couldn’t wait … Continue reading 2019 Growing: Chilli and Sweet Pepper Review
- First Summer in the Polytunnel2019 is our first summer having the Polytunnel and we’re sharing our successes and failures that came along with it. … Continue reading First Summer in the Polytunnel
- Growing Summer Hanging BasketsWe’re sharing our experience from start to finish including which plants we used, compost, fertiliser and a review of the whole process. Including failures!
- First Spring In the PolytunnelWe have been busy for the last couple of months growing our seedlings indoors and transferring them to the tunnel in preparation for various growing projects.
- Installing the PolytunnelsSummer 2018 Before we went for it and installed the tunnels we did a lot of research and tried to … Continue reading Installing the Polytunnels
- First winter in the polytunnelIn summer 2018 we invested in two 22m long polytunnels which we use to over winter plants, start seedlings off … Continue reading First winter in the polytunnel
- Chilli and Sweet Pepper harvesting in NovemberMisty mornings and a continuous fire means winter is well on its way. This is our first winter on the … Continue reading Chilli and Sweet Pepper harvesting in November
- The Journey BeginsFrom City to Rural Homegrownandhopeful is the start of a a new chapter in which we said yes to an … Continue reading The Journey Begins