worms

Posted on 24 Sep, 2009 6 comments

On our island we had a disaster with the accidental importation of the new zealand flat worm. this is a flat bluish coloured worm that predates on earthworms. they bred very rapidly and having no predators the population of them exploded. the result is that they have virtually wiped out the earth worm in large areas of the island. Being an angler and using worms to catchh seatrout this is a disaster for me (not to mention the bad effect on the soils). I decided to start a wormery to supply my fishing bait.
it is good to have my bait handy but there are two added benifits. first the worms eat all my kitchen waste, tea-bags potatoe peelings etc. The second benefit is that they turn the kitchen waste into fantastic compost, far better than any i can buy.
as I have been so busy this last couple of years I have not had time to do much fishing so my worm population has multiplied greatll and I now have threee wormeries on the go (soon to be four).
With just my first wormery it took a long time to produce enough compost to be worthwhile but with three going i am getting a steady supply.
Apart from eating kitchen waste they also eat paper and cardboard and it all gets turned into a rich compost. A liquid plant food can be made by suspending a bag of the compost (worm poo) in a ttub or bucket of water for a few hours. this is quite concentrated and should be diluted before feeding to the plants
The benifits to the plants is not justt the chemical content of the compost , but also the bacteria that it contains, plants need bacteria around thier roots for the roots to function well

Comments

Gilli

Fantastic islander. 3 wormeries must give you fabulous soil. What a disaster about your earthworms though. Are there any plans to deal with the invasive worms?

25 Sep, 2009

Terratoonie

Have there been experiments to combat the New Zealand flat worms ?
Are there no ways to eradicate them ?
Well done on your wormeries ! :o)

25 Sep, 2009

Mookins

thats awful news about the flat worms... but great news with your wormeries
maybe everyone on the Island should do the same?

x x x

25 Sep, 2009

Irish

well done with 3 wormeries .
can the New Zealand worms be used as bait

25 Sep, 2009

Islander

unfortunately the NZ flatworm is no good for bait. it is unpleasant to touch and its sticky mucas is an irritant.
because it is such a successful predator I believe it will die out only when it has killed and eaten all the available worms. I don't think there are any pesticides or treatments tht will get rid of hem. Maybe stricter controls of imported plants would have prevented them ever appearing in the U.K

25 Sep, 2009

Irish

i googled them. seems they are mostly confined to Scotland and NI . as you say stricter control on plants would have prevented them reaching the UK

25 Sep, 2009

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