How to build a Wormery

I have recently been asked by some younger anglers how to build a wormery so today I am going to walk through the steps.

Worms of all types make a great bait. Nearly every species of coarse fish will readily take a worm if offered in the right way. Therefore it can pay to have a ready supply at your disposal. Obviously you could dig your worms from your garden but this is very labour intensive and you will find that sometimes the worms are down very deep in the earth. This could leave you with little or no bait. You could also buy your Worms from most good tackle shops but that can work out very expensive. The cheapest and simplest way of ensuring you have a good supply of worms at your disposal any time you need them is to build your own wormery.

It is very simple to build a wormery and once you have it set up it needs very little attention. The worms will be happy to do there own thing in their perfect environment until you need them. All you need to do is keep them topped up with food such as vegetable peelings, mashed potato and tea bags. This will keep them quite content and they should breed well giving you a constant supply of quality bait.

Build your own wormery in 7 simple steps.

1. The first thing you need is a suitable container to house the worms. I use one of the household recycling bins that are supplied by most councils but you could use any similar sized plastic container.


2. Drill a few small holes into the base of your container to act as drainage. You don't want them to get waterlogged!


3. Place a layer of wet news paper on the bottom.


4. Now add a layer of about 4 inches of fine gravel. This is available from any garden centre.


5. Add another layer of wet newspaper.


6. Now add a layer of moss and leaf mulch about 2 inches thick and again cover with a layer of wet news paper.


7. This is the stage that you add your earth. You want to add good garden soil that will already hold lots of the organic food that the worms live on. Try to insure that you remove any large stones. Fill your bin up to within half an inch of the top of your container and there you have it your own wormery.

You now want to place your wormery in a convenient place out of direct sunlight. You want to start off your wormery with at least 100 worms. I think it worth investing in buying your first worms from one of the companies who sell worms in bulk. There are quite a few companies that will send you worms buy mail order. Try wormsdirectuk or one of the others that you can find on the web. You can stock your wormery with Lob worms or Dendrobena worms. Both make fantastic bait for fishing and will breed in a well kept wormery.

The only thing you have to remember is to keep your wormery topped up with suitable food but be careful not to over feed your worms. If you find a lot of rotted food when you go to re-feed you are feeding them too much and that can damage the wormery.
Another tip is to change about half of the soil every few months. This is necessary because keeping the worms in the same soil will eventually poison them.
It is really that simple. Keep to these rules and you will always have a good supply of worms at your disposal in minutes.