| Global Worming
Newsletter - July 2009 In this issue we
will cover the following subjects:
- Worms are leaving your worm farm during a
coldfront!
- How can we protect our worms from dying in
the Sun.
- What can we do to minimize the occurance of
Fruitflies?
Dear Friend,
Now that we are here in the middle of Winter in
Cape Town I am sitting here in front of my laptop
wearing one Jersey and two Jackets, getting ready
for the next cold front to hit us with lots of rain
to fill our Dams with the live giving liquid that we
all depend on.
How do we value a home and dry place in these
kind of conditions. But while we tend to seek cover
wherever we can to avoid getting wet our worms often
leave their holes in the Garden soil or even their
snuggly worm farm to crawl up the walls of houses,
along the sidewalks or new places around the garden.
Many times we've seen hundred's and even
thousands of worms stranded on the pavement or the
street once the morning sun hit the grounds and
dried them up. It takes just a few minutes for a
worm to die once exposed to the sunlight with no
place to hide.
So it happens quite frequently that a once
thriving worm bins looses thousands of worms due to
heavy rains....
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...So why do the worms migrate in wet weather and
how can we protect our Worm herd?
There are 2 probable reasons why worms leave
their cosy homes...
Firstly: Worms can drown if their burrows get
flooded with water which has a very low oxygen
content. However this shouldn't be a problem for
worms in domestic worm farms as they are covered
with a lid and only little to no rainwater will
enter their home.
Which leaves us with the second possibility:
It is thought that the worms dislike the
vibrations that are caused by the raindrops falling
and banging onto the lids and sides of their Worm
bins. This theory is supported by the fact that worm
bins that are standing in sheltered places like a
garden Shed or a garage, are loosing significantly
fewer worms than those that are placed outside.
But knowing that many keen worm bin owners don't
have the luxury of a Garage or Garden shed, what are
our options to protect our wriggling friends?
We at "Global Worming" found a cheap and
effective way of minimizing the loss of worms is to
set up what we call "Worm saving Traps"!
It sounds fancy but they are actually easy to
make and fun to work with. What you will need are
some old Newspapers or Cardboard boxes. All you have
to do is to place an old newspaper (several sheets
at once) or a nice flat piece of corrugated
cardboard (the bigger the better) on the ground
underneath your worm bin or close to it. We use
corrugated cardboard as it works the best. The
cardboard sheets will soak up water in the rain and
will offer the worms who leave their bin during a
rainy night a place of food and shelter once the sun
comes up the next morning. All you or your children
have to do now is to lift up the Cardboard or
Newspaper, pick up the worms and return them to the
worm bin. You can use a soft hand broom and a
dustpan and sweep them up or take the whole sheet of
cardboard and throw it into your worm bin. The worms
will love it.
Have a look around and pick up a few bricks or
buckets that might have some moisture preserved
underneath their bottom. You will be surprised how
many worms have crawled underneath to find shelter.
Give it a try and send us your positive feedback!
Question
Hi Stephan,
My worms seem to be happy, but I'm concerned
about some flies in my farm. Anything I need to do?
The flies are small little jobs, like fruit flies,
but I don't want them to lay eggs which will hatch
into larvae etc when the weather warms up.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Andrew
Answer
Great Question Andrew!
These flies sound indeed like fruit flies. They
are actually not harmful to your worms but widely
regarded as a nuisance. The eggs of the fruit flies
come usually unseen to us on the skins of fruit and
vegetables. Fruit flies love banana skins for
example.
You can kill the fruit fly larva by freezing your
scraps before placing them in your worm farm.
In addition to that it would be good to dig a
small trench in your worm bin and and drop your
scraps into the trench, covering it afterwards again
with processed worm castings. This should keep most
of the fruit flies away.
Build a simple fly trap out of an old 2 or 5
liter bottle plastic bottle. Poke a few (5 to 10
holes) with a Nail or a small screwdriver into the
sidewalls of your bottle, stuff a few banana skins
inside and place the bottle on an elevated place
close to your worm bin.
Try any or all of the above and you should get on
top of your fruit fly problem.
We love your input
Please sent us your questions concerning worm
farming and we will try to answer it in one of our
next newsletters. Just write to info@globalworming.co.za
and post your question.
Read more about the do's and don'ts of Worm
Farming on our web site as www.globalworming.co.za
Please pass this Newsletter on to anyone you know
who might benefit from it. They can subscribe for
free at www.globalworming.co.za
We wish you continued success with your worm
farming projects and hope this Newsletter was
helpful.
Kind regards
Stephan Kloppert
Editor
Global Worming News |
