28 Oct 2009

Can-O-Worms

The latest addition to my garden (well, garage actually) – is a worm farm! I’ve wanted one for ages and did some research on the net and found a supplier in Pezenas. It was interesting to find that it’s the brand Can-O-Worms, designed and manufactured in Australia.

I called into the factory on the day we (Neil and Jane and I) were heading up to the Millau Bridge. The woman who served us spoke good English and told us the story of how she came to be importing them into France. She worked near Sydney for about five years, and came into contact with them there, and saw a business opportunity.

And now she has a successful recycling/composting business that employs five people, breeds worms and supplies them with the worm farms. She has also done the ground work to getting local communes (councils) and schools involved. A nice story.

So, as I was buying one for Margaret who lives in the village, it was a rather tight fit in the car with three adults and two of these things – they’re rather cumbersome. And it was Neil who ended up squashed in the back seat with the worms, hoping there weren't going to be any escapees…..
Because I bought two farms, I was given a book on worms as a bonus. So my bedtime reading at the moment is Worms Eat my Garbage !

And two weeks after set-up, mine seems to be going great guns. The instructions advise all the types of things that can be fed to them, and suggests that the smaller things are cut up, the easier it is for the worms.

Now Neil took this very seriously, and can be seen here carefully cutting avocado skin into manageable size pieces!!

He made a real good job of the cardboard insert of the toilet rolls, (the woman at the factory said it was a real treat for them!.....) Sadly, I didn’t get to record that on film. He and Jane and are so impressed with the setup, they’re going to buy themselves one in Scotland.

I debated about taking a photo of the worms at work, and decided that a picture of my kitchen scraps being composted probably wasn’t in good taste….

But I can report everything seems to be going according to plan, and hopefully soon I will have worm castings for the garden/pot plants, and liquid fertiliser on tap!

No comments:

Moving sideways

Future posts on Bize-Bytes can now be found on Facebook. Link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bize-Bytes/895137113876897