Use and Care Manual

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What doesn’t go in a worm farm:
• flavor-intensive foods such as ginger
or an excessive amount of citruses
• milk products
• meat products
• bones
• oil, lard and other fats
TIP: In the beginning of composting, don’t dispose of leftovers of stalk vegetables or potato peels.
The initial small number of worms cannot process them with their enzymes and the leftovers could
smell.
Where to put the worm farm Urbalive?
The worm farm Urbalive can stand in the kitchen, on the balcony,
in the hallway, in a garage, as well as in a classroom or an oce. If
you maintain a few simple rules, you don’t need to be afraid that the
contents of the worm farm would smell badly.
Keep at an adequate temperature. The earthworms like a temper-
ature around 68 °C (20 °C). In the winter, don’t leave the worm farm
outside without insulation, so that it wouldn’t freeze through. In the summer, don’t put it directly in the sun,
where it would overheat and dry up. The temperature in the worm farm should not drop below 41 °F (5 °C)
and exceed 77 °F (25 °C).
Keep the vermicompost at the right humidity level. Check the correct moisture level in the worm farm
by taking a handful of the composted material and pressing it in your palm as hard as possible. If a few
droplets of water appear, the moisture level is ideal. If more water appears, you should dry up the com-
post, for example with shredded paper or carton. If the drops of water fail to appear, moisten the compost
with a water spray or by adding dampened shredded paper or carton from a box or an egg crate. The
number of earthworms may decrease if optimal humidity is not provided.
Earthworms like the dark, so do not place the worm composter in the direct sunlight. The best place for
earthworms is in the shade.
Which earthworms should I use for the worm farm and where to get them?
There is a particular species of earthworms that was bred specifically for composting and that you should
use in your worm farm. They are called the California hybrid or tiger worms (in Latin it‘s Eisenia andrei).
Unlike their common relatives known as redworms (Eisenia fetida), tiger worms are much more eager to
Composting step by step, in detail
• Create a bedding at the bottom of the composting trey (B1) using moistened crumpled paper. One layer
is enough. The box your Urbalive vermikompostér came in is perfect to use for this purpose. But you can
also use egg cartons, newspaper, rolls from toilet paper, grass, leaves, peat, wood shavings or coconut
fiber.
• Put your earthworm hatch on the bedding. For start, one pound (0.5 kg) of earthworms will be sucient.
For those counting, it would be about two hundred earthworms. We’ll tell you later in these instructions
where to get your worms.
• Cover the earthworms as well as the entire bottom of the composting trey (B1) with about an inch (2–3 cm)
thick layer of bio-waste chopped to small pieces.
• For the first month, feed the earthworms once or twice a week with a handful of bio-waste. Beware of
overfeeding. Otherwise the earthworms won’t manage to process the bio-waste and it begins to go
mouldy. If this happens, simply remove the mouldy parts from the worm farm.
• As there are more earthworms, you can increase the volume of the bio-waste. In about three months
the worm farm manages to process approximately half a pound (quarter of a kilo) of bio-waste per day.
This is approximately the amount produced daily by a four-member family.
• Check the moisture level several times a week.
• Once a week carefully rake through the content of the worm farm and see how the earthworms are
doing. This also nicely aerates the compost.
• Keep the worm farm closed, the earthworms like darkness.
• In about two months, the worm farm begins to create the earthworm tea, a liquid product of compost-
ing. This runs down into the bottom tray with the release valve. Remove the earthworm tea about once
or twice a month, depending how much is formed. Wash out the bottom tray of the vermikompostér
every time you tap o the earthworm tea.
• Once the composting trey (B1) fills up entirely, add a pile of bio-waste in the middle to create a mound.
Press the second trey (B2) on this and start filling the new trey with bio-waste. The earthworms will either
move to the second trey (B2) by themselves or you can help them and move a part of the earthworms
to the upper floor. Leave the full trey (B1) in the set for another month. During this time all earthworms
will move to the trey (B2) and the material in trey (B1) will turn into vermicompost. If you need to use the
fertilizer immediately, you can spread it in a thin layer on an underlay and make a mound in the middle.
The worms will move from the thin layer to the mound.
• Then remove the vermicompost from the composting trey (B1), fertilize your plants and wash the trey
under running water. The composting trey (B1) thus becomes the empty trey (B2). For now add it empty
to the composter or set it aside until you fill the trey in which you are composting at the moment. Then
repeat the entire cycle with moving the earthworms to the upper floor. And so on, over and over.
What goes in a worm farm:
• Peels and leftovers of fruits and vegetables
(for example potato peels, apple cores, green tops, etc.)
• Tea bags (earthworms often like to reproduce in them,
so don’t forget them)
• Coee grounds, coee filters
• Leftovers of boiled vegetables
• Crushed eggshells
• Paper napkins
• Dampened paper carton
• Dry baked goods
• Leftovers of house or outdoor plants
TIP: Chop large pieces into smaller, the worms will process
them better.
ENGLISH ENGLISH