The Magic Worm Ranch

So my “Magic” worm ranch isn’t quite as magical as the name suggests. But after several years of experimenting, I think it’s finally working for me.

The ranch is a contained system of trays with coconut coir or other medium that the worms are supposed to navigate and compost. You add your food waste excluding meats/oils to the top tray and cover it with shredded paper and/or cloth. You can do this over and over until you are ready to add the next tray. When the worms are finished with the bottom tray they should move up to the next one and start composting. Eventually you have multiple trays all at different stages of composting. When the bottom tray is ready, you remove it, use the compost in your garden and add the tray with new medium at the top.

 Although I initially wanted my ranch for compost, I mostly use it for the worm pee. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Actually, worm pee is quite valuable. They sell it in the Home Depot fertilizer section for a hefty price. It’s collected in the very base of the ranch under the bottom tray. The base has a spigot for easy worm pee harvest. My problem with the ranch is that there always seems to be worms still in the very bottom tray when I want my compost. Maybe I don’t wait long enough? Maybe my worms know how it works and are hoping for freedom from the labor of the ranch? At first I would pick them out and put them back in the top tray. Eventually, that became too tedious and now I just let them go.

Here’s what I wrote about the ranch in August 2007:

“Travis gave me a magic worm ranch for our anniversary. With that he gave me 3 lbs of Red Worms from somewhere in the Midwest to fill it with. Poor things, they almost perished while I was trying to find the right place to keep the “ranch.” First, I had them in the side room of the garage apartment which worked pretty well. Then, I wanted to try keeping them outside, so I put them in that ugly wooden thing in the back yard with a lid over it to keep out rain. However, the sun must have been hitting it in the late afternoon because worms started dying left and right. The smell of over heated worms is not pleasant in case you were wondering. After that, I tried keeping them under the stairs of the garage apartment in the shade and protected from the rain by an overhang (or so I thought). After one particularly ferocious rain storm, I found the worms swimming in water. Quite a few drowned during that period. Apparently the overhang didn’t hang over quite enough. Back into the side shed, the worms began repopulating. Eventually, I was able to add another tray and the little buggers seemed quite happy. However, I quickly became impatient and removed the first tray full of compost to use on my potted plants.  Back to only one tray to live in, the worms then acted as though it was just too hot. What worms, you don’t like August heat waves? Welcome to Florida. As of now they are doing okay, and I think I can add a second tray here really soon. The only problem is that I have these other white, ugly, big, grubbie-looking worms that have infested the ranch and are consuming the vegetable and fruit waste. I don’t know if the red worms are getting enough food. And, I don’t see any of the local wigglers that I just bought and added to the ranch in hopes of increasing compost production. I think something bad might have happened to them.”

Turns out that the “white, ugly, big, grubbie-looking worms”were soldier fly larvae. They were almost impossible to get rid of. The flies were entering the ranch via the small ventilation holes in the lid. I tried putting some mesh on the inside, but that still didn’t work. I eventually remedied the situation by moving the worms into our garage. The good thing about a worm ranch is that it doesn’t smell bad as long as you are doing everything right.  I finally have all my trays going and the worms seem happy.  

My advice to anyone considering a worm ranch is to do your research first and know that it takes TIME for worms to create compost. It isn’t magic.