As I noted recently, I love my worms.
For the past couple of years I’ve had a Can-O-Worms
Here’s a look at this superb piece of equipment.
What is a worm farm? What do you do with it?
Before discussing the Can-O-Worms itself, let’s take a step back and look at worm farms in general. After all, they’re not as common as they should be.
A worm farm is like a potted plant, without the plant. It’s a large container filled with soil, with drainage holes in the bottom and some sort of a lid to keep out the rain. Living in the soil are several hundred worms.
The idea behind it is simple : your kitchen scraps (teabags, potato peelings, eggshells and so on) are put in the top, and the worms convert this into nutrient-rich ‘casts‘ and fertiliser. These can then be added to your vegetable garden, and the process starts again.
NB : The ‘casts’ (sometimes called ‘vermicasts‘) are really just lumps of soil that have already been processed by the worms.
The Can-O-Worms
When I bought this, there really wasn’t all that much choice. However, it has several features which have kept at the top of the worm-farm list for some time. These include :
- The bulk of the device stands on several ‘stilts’, which allow airflow under and around the worm farm. In addition to preventing the setup from smelling foul, this height also enables a watering can or bucket to be easily placed beneath the tap (for liquid fertiliser – aka ‘worm tea’).
- The Can-O-Worms is made up of several layers, which are simply ‘shuffled’ when the top one becomes full. The worms will automatically find their way to whichever one is on top; where the food is.
- This is an extremely low maintenance device. However, the replacement items (such as a mat for the topmost section, to keep moisture out) are easy to get in garden centres around the world.
Kitchen to Yard : using a worm farm
When it comes to transferring the kitchen scraps to the worm farm, there are several ways of handling things. As I like to keep things simple, I :
- use a dedicated ‘peeling rack’ above the kitchen sink. This just catches peelings and other scraps when I’m preparing a meal. The worms will eat almost anything, so I always end up with a fair bit of material.
- I keep an empty ice-cream container (any reasonably large plastic container with a lid is fine) beneath the sink. When I’m clearing up, the contents of the ‘peeling rack’ go in here. I also add teabags, coffee grounds, eggshells and small amounts of paper whenever they become available.
- Whenever the container is full (every few days or so) I take it out and empty it into the top of the worm farm.
That’s it.
Great, where can you get the Can-O-Worms?
There are two main sources for something like this. They are :
- garden centres, or almost anywhere you buy plant pots, soil or fertiliser
- environmental stores, such as Wiggly Wigglers in the UK, Happy D Ranch in the US or Kookaburra Worm Farms in Australia
Final thoughts on the Can-O-Worms
There are two main reasons for getting the Can-O-Worms – or any other – worm farm. These are :
- There’ll be a lot less garbage to put out in the trash can each week
- The fertilizer it produces is great for the veggie garden, so you’ll end up with more – and tastier – food
Additionally, it can be a great project for the kids. As long as they don’t try to name all of the worms, that is.
As far as I’m concerned, the combination of less work/more food (healthy, of course) is a definite winner.
Absolutely priceless information Scott. Thank you so much. I’m still curious about the Canadian winters and how the worms would survive? Would you move the can-o-worms indoors for the winter? to the basement or pantry?
it gets pretty cold here in the winter and I would truly like to get this thing up and running as soon as possible. I will source out a Canadian store for getting the worms and post an update.
At what rate do the worms produce dirt? how often do you remove the dirt / fertilizer?
So, the food parts go in the top and then the worms produce dirt “poo” which gets filtered down to the bottom. Is there a door on the bottom near the tap? are the worms lifted out of the top and then the bottom part of the can-o-worms dumped out? or is there a trap door near the tap?
very cool.
Great post
Thanks Rob. A few quick answers :
The worms are fairly hardy – I’ve had them in temps well below freezing – but it’s probably a good idea to bring them indoors when it gets really bad. Sounds like the Canadian winters are not to be taken lightly 🙂
The time it takes to make a cast just depends on the number of worms, how happy they are in their environment and the amount+quality of their food. It varies quite a bit, but expect it to be at least a few months.
There are three separate levels in the main part of the Can-O-Worms. As the top one becomes full of food, it’s physically moved to the bottom – and a lot of the worms will crawl back to the new ‘top’ (where the food now goes).
When the bottom level has completely turned from scraps -> cast, it’s lifted out and put on the garden. There’s no trap-door; the top two layers are just lifted off. The worms will no longer be in that section as there’s nothing left to eat in there.
Hope that helps. I can go into more detail if you’d like.
Cool post Scott! I am thinking about getting one of these as well – and wondered about our Canadian Winters. 🙂
So the unit doesn’t have an odor? I ask as for our winters, I would have to put the unit into my garage. My garage would be dark 99% of the time. I assume that is acceptable, correct?
Do you worry about other bugs getting into the worm farm? What about mice, etc? How big are the openings of the worm farm? Do the worms ever escape?
Do the worms ever escape? now there’s a question I had not thought of asking
An ever better questions is “Can worms climb stairs?!?” 😛
Thanks Michele. I’m compiling all of the questions like this, but briefly :
It doesn’t take much to keep worms happy. A fairly regular supply of food; dark and dry conditions. If you suddenly added lots of ‘strange’ foods (and they’ll eat almost anything, so this isn’t easy) you might upset things. There’d be uneaten food, and that would probably smell.
As to escaping – once again they could, but they are very unlikely to. After all, their food’s inside the worm farm.
A dark garage sounds perfect.
Wow, that’s a really cool device and it looks like you could actually get a good yield out of it. I hadn’t heard of it up until now, but it definitely would take some of the prep work out of the whole ordeal.
This is a long ways from how we used to do it 🙂
I recently started using my can-o-worms and find some of the instructions ambiguous. The current problems is worms escaping. I have it set up in my basement, and each day there are 10-20 worms on the floor. It seems the escapees crawl up the sides and out, rather than climbing up through the holes to the next level. It doesn’t seem to fit tight enough around the sides to keep them in. Is this something you just have to live with?
Ron, I’ve only just bought my own can-o-worms and pick up the worms tomorrow. With no experience yet, my guess would be that it would have to do with soil conditions. If the worms dont want to be in your soil, they’d crawl up. Might be too acidic? or too wet.
Extra instructions that came with mine indicated that worms are sensitive to pressure changes and know when rain is coming. THey leave the soil and head to the top to get away from the flood.
Does this help?