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  • Naomi Stephens | Permaculture Designer

Attract Worm Castings to your Garden (4 Step Cardboard Box Method)

Updated: Apr 6, 2022


Worm castings are one of the best fertilisers that you can have in your garden.


Worm castings are considered black gold because they replicate the very best of soil nature has to provide, in terms of rich nutrition, beneficial bacteria, and fungi.


To understand the benefits of worm castings, I recommend you see my article here first:


Benefits of Worm Castings in your Garden


One of the main focuses in Permaculture is to make connections with nature by using animals or insects to do your work, which benefits you and them.


In permaculture apartments, we adapt and use smaller varieties of biological life like worms



What is the cardboard box method?


Worms eat through dead organic matter, and that's exactly what cardboard is. So the idea is to lure worms to your garden by providing them with cardboard.


Even better is that worms can carry up to 15 eggs at a time. Worms can lay more eggs after just 4 months old.


Once worms are attracted to your garden, they will procreate and increase the fertility of your soil, without you having to do any more work.


Step 1


Get some plain cardboard, try to make sure that the cardboard is not glossy, and remove the labels if possible.


If you can’t remove the labels, then not to worry, I’ve had success with cardboard that still has the delivery labels on it.


Step 2


Add some water to the cardboard. I always use distilled water. You can buy some in the supermarket stores or on amazon.


If you can't get distilled water then use rainwater. Do this by leaving it out in the rain. The cardboard can be damp or soggy.


Step 3


Lay your cardboard on top of your existing soil, whether it's grass or wild weeds, it doesn't matter and there's no need to dig.


This is a fantastic way of killing all the weeds or vegetation, which you don't want growing in your garden bed.



Step 4


Add your compost on top of the wet cardboard.

You can have a thick layer of compost almost like a garden bed, leave it thick enough for you to plant in.


How does this work?


Worms start eating your cardboard, it takes about 6 months, and all that's left is a bunch of worm castings.


You'll also have a bunch of worms that will continue to fertilise the area. These worms will begin to aerate the soil by burrowing. Worm castings increase the water-holding capacity of your soil. To find out more about the benefits of worm castings, see my article by clicking her.

 

If you liked this article then please leave a like, share or subscribe. I'd love to hear your tips on what you think the best garden fertilisers are.


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