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My Mum bought my Dad a womery for Christmas - who said romance was dead. Dad duely sent off for the worms and when they arrived (end of Jan) we put everything together and watched them burrow down into the pile of dirt provided and laid on a layer of peelings etc. But since then nothing, zip, zilch.

I am wondering if they have died but Mum swears she has seen them wriggling about.

How long is it supposed to take to produce the "juice"? A lady at our field has a very productive wormery and she said hers only took a couple of weeks but we hare now two months down the line!

Any info, advice, words of wisdom would be greatfully received.

Normally you would put the worms in the bedding and leave for a few weeks before adding any pealings.

If they are too cold they will not do much and if it is too wet or dry.

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My phone has more Processing power than the Computers NASA used to fake the Moon Landings

They certainly slow down in the colder weather - hiding deep down. As soon as it warms up they'll get busy again. We use old woolly jumpers (minus buttons or zips!) as worm blankets once they've broken down the one that comes with the wormery...sometimes adding a new one fills them with excitement and gets them all excitedly digesting once again.

This is a particularly good way to recycle OH's hideous Christmas pressies from his Mum

Lol, i've heard it all now. Composting hideous christmas pressies

When you have a mother in law like mine - its essential!

do you just put the jumper on top of the compost ? what about aeration, then ?

Why not compost Mother in law?

This is for Wormarys not Composting, they work diferantly. Compost needs air cos it airobic the bacteria needs oxygen to multiply but wormarys are just McD for worm. they eat it all you you are left with worm poo.

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My phone has more Processing power than the Computers NASA used to fake the Moon Landings

Is this a serious reply about how to decompose the in-law? So you recommend airobic decomposition of the inlaw then?

If only the MIL would fit in the bin !

I believe pigs are the preferred means of recycling mother-in-laws!

Right - I'm off to get a couple of porkers!

I would go with the pigs the eat the pig to get rid of any residual DNA.

The other favioured way of getting rid of aged Relatives in Canada is to book them on to cruises. It is much quicker than old peoples homes.

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My phone has more Processing power than the Computers NASA used to fake the Moon Landings

Got my OH to make me a wormery last weekend. When I read the bit about "jumpers" I thought it was posted on 1st April. How much bedding/soil/compost should my worms be living in? Bernie aka DDL

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

I've had my wormery for almost 2 months now. Mine is kept indoors and they have been very active, but have not produced any worm tea/wee.

I was being totally serious about worm blankets made from jumpers! You do have to make sure that they're natural fibres (wool/cotton etc) though otherwise there is no way the lovely wigglers will touch them!

You can also put in pet hair and when I cut OH's hair - that goes in too!

Our worm wee didn't arrive for quite a long while - but its worth the wait. Our potted plants have never been healthier and I can't wait to use it on the allotment this year

I put my hair on our compost, not a wormery, but it seems totally decomposed a year later, so the worms cant of hated it

We'll be back to the MIL if we're not careful...

Wormery advice- I have spent a stinky afternoon clearing out my wormery, and i realsuied i have only got the compost out of it once before today, and that as i was bought it as a leaving pressie from work in a job i finished 5 years ago, i'm not getting exacltyly loads.

The problem is that its a big rectangular womery- not one with the layers you can lift off.

Anyone know any secrets as to how to harvest my worm casts?

Today I dug the whole lot out, most of it was still partially decomposed food and stank, then all the fully eaten stuff was still chock full of worms and really wet, i have been sieving it through a riddle, laying it on card, covered with card board and leaving it overnight to see if the worms come to the top so i can put wem back in the bin and use the compost, but then i was shoveling 4 carrier bags of rot back into the thing.

Now the manual says that the worms eat everything, then keep heading upwards to the new stuff blah blha blah.

There must be an easier way???

We've got the one with the lift off sections but find that they head back into the 'ready' compost if the weather is particularly cold or damp. The solution in this case seems to be to add more newspaper/fibrous material to the top layer and to put on a new blanket which encourages them back up. I also have a bag of worm treat which seems to balance the womery out if things aren't going to plan - it came with the COW and I've only used about 1/4 of the bag in 2 years.

Not sure if this advice would work in the same way with the other sort, but it might be worth a try. Or check out the Wiggly Wigglers website for more tips ...