Worms are the hard workers in the garden that eat their way through all of your kitchen and garden organic scraps to turn it into rich compost. The worm castings add nutrients to the soil and gives the soil the structure to help your plants to thrive. Worm farms are a convenient factory where you house hundreds of composting worms dedicated to eating your leftovers.

But worms have likes and dislikes just as every other living animal does and in order to maximize their output and keep them active and reproducing, there are some things they will require.

 First and foremost, worms require a plentiful supply of food, the more food that is available the faster they will grow and multiply. You can give them a steady diet of lawn clippings, weeds, vegetable scraps and animal manures.

Worms like a light loamy soil over a heavy clay soil, so always make sure this is the kind of conditions that have been prepared for them. In most cases you won’t have to be too concerned about this aspect for your worms because they will be living inside your worm farm where the bedding will be geared towards promoting as much food as possible.

Worms prefer the temperature to be on the cool and moist side. Temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius can prove fatal for the earthworm. If the temperature becomes too warm the worms will attempt to move deeper into the soil where it will be cooler. This will affect their production as they will be moving away from their food source for survival. To ensure the temperature doesn’t get too hot within the worm farm it should be positioned in a cool, shady spot in the garden.

Worms also have a preference for soils with a certain pH level. Different species of worms have a preference for a different range of pH, but most are tolerant of soil pH that ranges from 4.5 to around 8. If you have soil with a low pH level, say, less than 5.5, adding wood ash or dolomite will increase the pH and give the worms a more suitable environment.

 Worms don’t like to be uncovered on warm days. They rely on a moist surrounding environment to avoid drying out and their preference is to stay well and truly out of direct sunlight.

Another reason worms don’t like to be uncovered is that it leaves them exposed and defenseless to attacks by birds.

They also don’t like being chopped up by spades or speared by garden forks. Those worms that are kept in a worm farm will be unlikely to come in contact with these sharp garden implements, although they also don’t like being touched.

Fertilizers are not good for worms, the particles that come in contact with their skin can burn holes in them and dehydrate them. Generally, worms that are part of a worm farm will not require fertilizer added to the bedding. But it is something to keep in mind when the worms have been transferred to the garden. Sometimes adding fertilizer to the garden is unavoidable but as long as it is only sprinkled on the surface of the soil and watered in there is less chance that it will harm the worms living underneath.

Another severe dislike shown by earthworms is to that of pesticides and other fumigants. This is mostly applicable to spraying done in crops and fields or spraying done to kill ants and termites. The chemicals used for both of these pests will also kill earthworms, so care must be taken when using pesticides around your worm population or you will find that there will suddenly be a severe reduction in your working population.

As long as you take appropriate care of your worms, ensure the food is continually added and the temperature is kept at a reasonable level, you will enjoy the resultant product of plenty of worm castings, worm tea and worm compost that will come from your worm farm.