Ausgarden: Australia's Gardening Community

Worms will eat absolutely anything that was once living. When thinking worms, think compost. The worms only start in on the food once it has begun to break down. Some things break down faster than others. It's a myth that they won't eat citrus peel or onion skins. They will happily eat both. Onion skins though tend to break down slowly so they won't tuck into those straight away, but eventually they will.

Mine get all the kitchen scraps except meat, bread and dairy. These tend to attract the unwelcome attentions of cats, dogs and rats. (They can be composted in a digester, a fancy name for a bottomless container with a securely fitting lid, like a garbage bin, bottom cut out, and half buried in the ground.) I also get all the coffee grounds from one of the cafes in town to feed to my worms. They love them.

As I said, think compost. To avoid the risk of the worm farm becoming anaerobic (stinky), a balance of greens and browns is necessary, just like a compost heap. I use shredded paper, straw, very old lawn clippings (not too much at a time because it clags), just about anything will do. Mind you, the worms don't seem to care if their home becomes a stinky mess. I think it's just we humans that mind.

Thought I'd build my little guys a nice, well-insulated home.

Step 1 - Prepare the ground. I just laid out an old rug for a few weeks.

Fewer weeds now ...

Step 2 - Make sure the weeds don't come back...a little weed mat will see to that

Step 3 - Raise the walls

Step 4 - Occupants move in. They hate light so by the time I got the camera, they'd mostly gone. I emptied the contents of the plastic worm farm into it.

A few that refused to move...they were persuaded in the end

Step 5 - Tuck them in. An old gunny sack makes a perfect 'lid'.

For those interested, earthworms are placed in one of three categories according to preferred habitat - endogeic, anecic and epigeic.

Endogeic worms live in lateral burrow systems fairly close to the soil surface though they rarely actually come to the surface. Of the three, they are the only group that actually 'eat' soil, which they consume to extract decaying organic matter and various minerals. You will only find these worms if you have soil rich in organic matter.

Anecic worms are also earth dwellers but these live in vertical, permanent burrows which they coat with mucous for stability. There is usually a little mound of stones, soil and castings at their burrow entrance and the burrows themselves can go down 2 metres or more. They surface feed on decaying organic matter.

Epigeic worms live on the surface (occasionally using the top few few centimetres of soil) among decaying litter which they consume. These are the compost worms. The most common of these is Eisenia fetida known commonly as the tiger worm, red worm, red wriggler etc, and is found on practically every landmass on earth. Any mulched garden is likely to have these workers busy consuming the decaying mulch. You can feed them extras if you wish as Dewey does by placing scraps under the mulch. The anecic worms would also appreciate this.
They are all commonly referred to earthworms though scientists refer to them as segmented worms. Hope this has been of some interest.