Vermiculture is the process of using worms, Brandling commonly called Tiger worms are the best, to break down compostable materials into a high quality fertiliser which can be used to feed your plants. At our Clapton site, we've made wormeries from recycled wood and from piling tyres together and stuffing the walls with paper – worms seem to love it.
To build a tyre wormery of your own just use ELCRPs simple guide:
1. Create a base from old bricks, flagstones or whatever. Ensure it is flat and with as few cracks as possible (you don't want the worms falling through or rats getting in)
2. Get four (or five or six) old, dumped tyres.
3. Stuff the tyres to the maximum with old newspapers.
4. Place a heavy Sunday newspaper on the bricks.
5. Pile the tyres on top of each other with the first tyre on the Sunday newspaper.
6. You now have an empty four tyre wormery.
7. Put some scrunched up paper or torn up cardboard in the bottom (this soaks up any leachate)
8. Fill the tyre wormery with organic material, semi-composted is best. If it is in your own garden you can put in kitchen waste (remember if you have built the base without major cracks or gaps then as soon as you put on a lid the wormery is rat proof!).
YOU CAN ADD: leftover food scraps including cooked food, tea bags, coffee grounds, egg shells, bread, hair, nail clippings, natural feathers and dust from your hoover.
IT IS BEST TO AVOID: garden waste such as grass clippings and large quantities of raw fresh fruit and vegetables as these can create excess liquid and lead to a smelly wormery. These can go in your compost bin instead.
9. Add worms (brandling commonly known as tiger worms are best)
10. Put on a lid. A piece of board weighed down with a brick works very well
(the lid should be big enough to ensure the rain doesn't get in)
11. Harvest a tyres worth at a time roughly every 6 to 8 weeks or so.
12. You are now the envy of all your gardening friends and neighbours as what you have harvested is fertiliser, not compost, and you only need a sprinkling for your plants to be healthy.
Feel free to paint the tyres pretty colours
