Food source. African Nightcrawlers are voracious eaters of kitchen and garden wastes. A good rule of thumb is to add a cup of shredded fruit peelings and/or vegetable wastes everyday for every 20 worms OR add food scraps equivalent to the initial purchase weight of the worms.
High protein kitchen wastes like meat, fish, dairy, and oily foods need to be pre-composted before using as worm food. Worms breathe through their skin. If oil coats their skin, they wouldn't be able to breathe. Citrus and onion peels should also be pre-composted.
Pre-composting allows high protein materials to breakdown and give off heat without affecting the earthworms. Gases produced by high protein materials like ammonia are also fatal to earthworms.
Shredded, dried tree leaves and garden wastes can also be added to the bedding as worm food but it is better to pre-compost these with high protein materials.
I will discuss in another post a simple method of pre-composting food waste.
SOURCE:"Manual of On-Farm Vermicomposting and Vermiculture", by Glenn Munroe, Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada
No comments:
Post a Comment