Growing Worms: How to Build Your Own Worm Ranch

If you've ever been fishing you'll know what a nuisance it is trying to buy decent worms. Why not grow your own worm ranch? Growing worms can be interesting and educational for kids. Worms are extraordinary creatures who are vital to maintaining a healthy garden, as well as a good fishing trip.

Building Your Worm Bed:

To make a healthy, rich worm bed you will need to take your car and trailer to a horse farm and pick up some manure. A standard 6ft X 4ft trailer will be ample. If you don't have much room, decrease your load to half quantity. Having selected the area to put the bed, hammer in a few wooden pegs and make walls for 3 sides by simply standing some old iron up. The pegs will hold these sheets of iron in place. Shovel your manure into the bed, and sprinkle in your worms.

*Caution: Do not buy horse manure which comes from freshly drenched/wormed horses, the chemical will kill your worms.

It is best to keep your worm bed covered up to protect it from drying and to prevent weeds from growing out through the manure since it will contain grass and weed seeds. You can use brown cloth carpet underlay, the type under most old carpets is best as there are not the chemicals in the fabric as there are these days. Spray with the garden hose, over the carpet and repeat once weekly, or enough to keep the soil moist enough that it clings together when a handful is squeezed. Buy a couple of small tubs of worms to get your worm farm started. You can buy them at any large store where hunting equipment and fishing licenses are sold for about $5 per tub.

If you're keen to get tarted but need to do it on a smaller scale, take your bought worms and load them into a large storage tub. These can be bought at department stores or discount stores. You will need to drill lots of drainage holes in the bottom. Worms cannot tolerate copious amounts of water and they will drown very easily and become smelly.

Feeding Worms:

If using the tub option, and manure is unavailable, use some clean fresh dirt from your garden and make some worm food using the following recipe:

-One part dried full cream milk powder.

-One part wheat germ.

* Sprinkle it on top, don't mix it into the soil.

After you have started them on this food, simply save your kitchen scraps and place across the top of the tub directly onto the dirt. Cover with a hession/burlap sack and keep damp, but not wet.

*Do not put any scraps like eggs or meat on top of your worm bed since this is likely to attract rodents.

Removing Castings:

Go to your hardware store and purchase a sheet of fine wire mesh. When you need castings (worm poo) for your vegetable garden or flower bed, simply shovel some dirt out of the worm bed or tub, and place it on the mesh. The mesh will need to be suspended over the dirt. Worms hate the light so they will all burrow directly to the bottom, through the holes and back into the beds. Take your rich soil and spread over the garden where necessary.

Growing worms can be loads of fun, you can watch them breed and multiply very quickly. You may have noticed a ring around a worm resembling a band-aid. These bands are the small egg sacks, and once ready to hatch they slide along the body of the worm and fall off into the dirt. Scratch around the dirt and you will see small ball-shaped objects, these are the eggs full of tiny thread like worms waiting to emerge.

Selling Your Worms:

Selling a few tubs of worms to fisherman when you have a large stock of them is even better fun. Spend a weekend every 3 months with a stall at a flea market or sell them at your yard sale. Take-Out Food container manufacturers will sell you small tubs with lids to pack them in. One hundred plastic tubs will only cost around $5 or you can use small burlap sacks if you prefer. Just count 40 worms per tub and place some dampened peat moss in to keep them moist and in the darkness.