Vermiculture, or worm farming, is a method of composting organic food waste into an excellent, organic liquid plant feed and rich, crumbly compost to feed your garden. The type of worms used in vermiculture vary, with the most popular being the tiger worm or red worm, and dendras.

This 3 tray garden wormery from Natural Collection comes with worms included, but if you’re making your own DIY wormery, you can usually get worms from your local nursery or garden centre.

What to feed your worms:

Worms are omnivorous (they eat both plant matter and meat), so they can be fed most types of organic waste. They do particularly well on fruit and vegetable scraps or peelings and shredded paper. Include paper towel, teabags, bread scraps, cereal, ice cream, biscuit crumbs, meat, fish and dairy products (meat, fish and dairy only in tiny quantities or the worms won’t be able to eat it fast enough to stop your worm farm getting smelly, some worm farmers prefer to omit these altogether) in their diet. DON’T feed your worms onion, garlic and other spicy foods. Citrus fruits should only be given in small quantities.

Worm accommodation:

Buy yourself a worm farm ready-to-go with all accessories including worms, or be frugal and creative and make one yourself. Here’s a video to show you how: