If you are looking for an easy way to create a great organic soil conditioner, then why not start growing your own worms with a worm farm?
Worms can be purchased in most areas and online. The usual varieties are Red Wrigglers, Indian Blues or Tigers, they may be known by other names such as brandlings. It doesn’t really matter which variety you start with, although it’s worth experimenting once you get going with your worm factory to see which variety suits you best.

Check online for a suitable worm farm, or you can build one yourself if you are handy. A worm farm can take up just a small space in your garden to start with; you could even have it in a basement, a shed or a garage. The location should be shady and cool, and sheltered from too much rain – for example, don’t put in under the edge of an overhanging roof, or your worms will drown in the first downpour.
Worms need a bed of dry material such as torn up newspaper, soil and dry leaves. Make sure they have plenty of depth of bedding to make themselves at home in. The bedding needs to be damp but not wet. Once the worms are settled in – you will need between five hundred or one and two thousand to start with – start feeding them with food scraps and chopped up newspaper. Don’t give your worms any meat, dairy or oil, and don’t give them too much food at once. They like veg and fruit scraps, eggshells, small bits of bread, tea leaves, fruit peel, rinds, coffee grounds and the like. Onions and garlic should not be given to worms, instead, add these direct to your compost heap,for good organic compost.  Look after them well, after all, you want them to be happy, because happy worms produce the best compost!
 The watchword is little and often. Feed your worm farm small amounts regularly, and cover each serving of food with a thin layer of bedding material or soil.
You can soon start collecting the worm liquid, also known as, Leachate,  which they produce, which can be diluted and used as a fertilizer or spray fertiliser. The worm casts, the result of the digestion of the food, can be used as a soil conditioner, sprinkled around plants, and is especially useful as an ingredient in home-made organic seed and potting compost.

Have you ever thought about having a worm farm?

 If you have, then now is a great time to get started. With so many of us making the decision to grow our own organic food, sources of clean, healthy and organic nutrition for the soil, the foundation of all good food, are more than ever important.
Yes, you can buy organic fertilizer of course, but building the soil up from scratch,with natural organic fertiliser so that it has the structure which is going to reward you with those amazing healthy fruits and vegetables, can only really be done with the help of home-made compost. Its cost effective in these hard times and an organic compost worm farm is the way forward, even with very little or a large area to have one.


It's always better in an organic system to be recycling, and a worm farm will use all the vegetable and fruit waste that your vegetable and fruit growing will produce.  For example, if you make your own apple juice, worms will just adore the left over crushed apples.  Any spoiled, over ripe or damaged fruit or vegetables that you can't use in the kitchen will be happily munched up by your little worm friends.
If you have just a small space, a worm farm is ideal. You can even have a worm farm in a basement or garage, although most people find it more convenient to have a space outside.  Worm farms come in all sizes, from not much bigger than a shoe box to ones which are big enough to deal with the waste from a small town.
The concept is simple. You purchase worms – generally Red Wigglers or European Nightcrawlers, and give them waste matter to eat – vegetables and food waste (not dairy, meat or fat) which might otherwise be thrown away – and generally add in some straw or other material to create a structure.

Wiggly Worm Organic Compost

The worms get on with eating, pooping and breeding, and you collect up the lovely organic matter, rich in nutrients, and use it either direct on the soil, as an element in your own home made compost mix, or you can create worm compost liquid which makes a great foliar feed - a liquid (Leachate) which can be sprayed directly onto the leaves of plants to nourish them.
(As a side benefit, the fishermen in your family will love you more than ever, as will your backyard poultry. Worms make excellent bait, and of course, wonderful food for chickens, ducks and geese. 
If you feel a bit uncertain about worm farming, then find someone locally who has a worm farm, and go and take a look.  You'll find there is little or no smell, that the whole worm farming process is clean, and that the worm farm output is very nice to handle and use.