Although we are approaching winter we have one of the Capes "SecretDays". Bright blue skies & hot sunshine.Those living in Gauteng always think its rains non stop in the Cape.It doesn't.

One of my worm bins became rather soggy, probably from peelings that had been frozen which always produce rather wet food when defrosted. Gale & I decided we had to do something about it. Because of the gorgeous weather we took it out side & lifted the whole lot out with the orange pocket that lined the bin above the strainers & placed it all on a plastic bag in the sun. We found the drainage holes partly blocked preventing the vermitea from draining.

Being in the sun the worms quickly bury themselves lower down in the heap. They hate sun. We added quite a lot of wood shavings from non-treated wood to absorb the damp castings above them & transferred this compost to another bucket for the time being. Some of these castings we inspected for worms & their eggs.There being none we diluted the compost in a bucket of water to throw on the garden as fertilizer.

A lot of worms had migrated onto the orange pocket lining.Gale picked them off & added them to the bucket where the majority of worms were. Not wanting to lose any eggs or the minute baby worms attached to the orange pocket she re-lined the bin with it & finished off the operation by placing the bucket of well mixed compost & worms back into the bin & placed a good covering of shredded newspaper on top.The result is a compost of pleasant friable soil.I will not give any food for a week as the event has been rather disturbing for the worms. They need to settle down & get back to work & do what they are supposed to do. That's laying eggs to increase the population.

This exercise is really for bins without several layers. I do not own that sort, partly because they are very expensive unless one can make ones own. As far as I am concerned I don't think worms mind what their homes are like as long as they get food & a little water.

I hope potential worm farmers will not be put off by the above procedure. If they are really keen they should not be. It's interesting. Plastic gloves can be worn & it's a wonderful way to ge rid of food waste that would have gone to the landfill. By the way these worms do not eat growing plants. Pumpking seeds & such like will sprout if put in the bin & should be removed before or once they have sprouted in the bin.

Happy worming

Beryl