This article describes my immediate family’s experience of using three different food waste disposal products.

Green Cone

Starting with me, I’m just into my third year with a green cone.  I bought this cheaply when MVDC was subsidising them.  It is a quite large inverted plastic cone which you part bury in the garden.  The buried part has holes in the sides to allow worms to enter from the surrounding soil. The supplier says it deals with all food waste, cooked and uncooked, even bones.  I’ve never put bones in, but it certainly deals with all our other food waste (two adults).  In the right conditions it should work all the year round and only need emptying every few years.  Mine seems to stop in the winter and I have emptied it each spring, putting the contents in the bottom of my compost heap when it must provide several hundred additional worms to the heap.  In summer it gets fruit flies but they are easily killed.

More information is at http://www.greencone.com/

Worm Works Wormery

My daughter bought a Worm Works Wormery last autumn.  She kept in her garage for the winter but it was slow getting going.  However in the past month it has really got going and she reckons the number of worms has tripled since she has had it.  It takes fruit, veg, cooked and uncooked, shredded paper but not meat and dairy products.  It is made from compartments which stack together.  Her daughter loves it as you can easily take it apart and see how the worms are doing in each layer.  Excess liquid drains and is collected at the bottom.  It is clean and she is really pleased with it.

More information is at http://www.bucketofworms.co.uk/wormery.html

Wigglywigglers

Wigglywigglers make a range of wormeries.  My younger son has a basic one which has just one compartment with a tap at the bottom to drain off liquid.  He keeps it outside and the worms survived the cold winter just gone.  He has had it for 15 months and it has taken most of his food waste (two adults) but it will need emptying soon.  He has yet to discover what the product is like, but it ought to be high quality compost.  Emptying will be rather messy, but it has done its job and I imagine was quite cheap.

More information is at http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/

Derek Smith