How to put worm farm worms in the garden | DIY In-Ground Worm Farm

Put worm farm worms in your garden by using an in-ground worm farm. This will keep the worms happy in your garden and fertilize the soil at the same time. An easy DIY in-ground worm farm can be made by burying a bucket with holes cut into it. Simply add coconut coir, worms and food scraps to keep worms in your garden.

How to keep worm farm worms in the garden

To keep worm farm worms in your garden create a home from them using a bucket with the bottom removed and holes cut into the sides for drainage. You can also use a ready-made in-garden worm farm. Bury this into your garden bed and half fill it with coconut coir.

Add your worms to and cover them with a worm blanket, cardboard or newspaper. You could even make one out of a small garbage can and place the lid on top.

An in-ground worm farm allows the worms to crawl out of the worm farm into your garden if they want to. This gives them the opportunity to break down organic matter outside the worm farm, but you will find that most worms will prefer to stay in. This is because it will be moist and full of organic matter which the worms will love. Keep it topped up with kitchen scraps and you will have happy worms.

Keep the bucket covered so that birds do not come in and eat your worms. If you find that ants are attracted to your worm farm, sprinkle some sugar cane mulch on top of the food scraps to keep them well covered and dig them into the top of the worm castings.

How to keep worms in the garden without a worm farm

To keep worm farm worms happy in your garden beds without an in-ground worm farm keep a thick layer of mulch on top of your garden beds and keep it moist. The best mulches are thick hay or thick layers of tree mulch.

Worm farm worms come from tropical areas with dense layers of organic matter. You would need to have a thick layer of mulch on top of your garden beds to keep the soil moist enough for them however, over time you still might find that they head off out of your garden.

Benefits of putting worm farm worms in your garden

The benefits of putting worm farm worms in your garden is that it will simplify the process of fertilizing your garden. The worms will break down food scraps and the nutrients will spread out from the worm farm to your plants through the holes of an in-ground worm farm. Worms can travel a out of the worm bucket and transfer their castings and compost through the beds.

This simple process makes it easy to keep your worms happy without having to remove worm castings or worm tea. Placing small worm farms throughout your garden provides more opportunities to make compost for your garden. If the buckets become too full, simply scoop out half of the worm castings and scatter them through your garden.

The other benefit of an in-ground worm farm is that there is no risk of the worms getting too wet and drowning. Any excess water will drain out of the bottom of the bucket and through the holes in the side.

Where to buy worms for your garden

The best place to buy worms for your garden is from your local garden center or online. You can buy bags of worm eggs or the worms themselves. They are usually sold in bags of 500 worms or 1000 worms at a time.

If you are planning on using a small in-ground worm farm, around 1 gallon in size then 500 worms will be enough to start the process. If you are burying a larger, 9 gallon bucket, then start with 1000 worms.

Keeping worm farm worms in a vegetable garden

Most vegetable gardens will dry out too much for composting worms. Instead use in-ground worm farms and top them up with food scraps. This will keep your worms happy and your vegetables will get added organic matter and fertilizer from the worms.

Keeping earthworms and red worms together in the garden

Earthworms will occur naturally in your garden soil if it is moist and full of organic matter. Red worms are composting worms and are used in worm farms because they break down organic matter quickly and enjoy the moist environment of a worm farm.

A range of worm species can live together in your garden but I recommend keeping red worms separate in their own in-ground worm farm. They will be happier and break down organic matter quicker.

How to put worms in a compost bin  

You can put worms in your compost bin to speed up the composting process.  Make sure the compost is kept moist and the worms are protected with cardboard or newspaper. This will work best if the compost has already started to break down and starts to resemble soil. The worms will enjoy living in this moist substance called humus and will continue to break down the food scraps and leaves added.

Don’t add composting worms to hot compost until it has started to cool down. Worms can die if they are put into a hot compost system. Check out this short video that shows how successful adding composting worms to a cold compost bin can speed up the break down process.

How to attract worms naturally to a compost bin

To attract worms naturally to a compost bin keep the compost moist and full of organic matter like fall leaves and food scraps. Place your compost bin on the ground soil and let the garden worms naturally find their way in.

To attract garden worms to your compost, keep it moist with a good balance of green and brown materials. If you are making compost with 100% fall leaves, this will naturally attract garden worms to the leaf material.

Attracting natural garden worms to your compost is a great approach to improving your compost as they can move in and out of the bin as the organic matter breaks down.

When the compost is completely broken down the worms will move back out into your garden to continue to break down organic matter and improve your soil. It is likely that some will stay in your compost so can be added back to the garden soil when the compost has broken down completely.

Attracting garden worms to your compost naturally is a completely free way of getting worms into your home compost bin. If you add composting worms to your compost bin they could head off into your garden in search of moist soil and won’t improve your compost. This will only work for compost bins with soil contact allowing worms to naturally find their way in.