Diet of worms has to be right for compost success | Letters

Readers respond to Adrian Chiles’s report of his struggle to create compost from his organic waste using a wormery

Along with, no doubt, many other vermophiles, I’d like to reassure Adrian Chiles that wormeries do work and that his worms will handsomely reward his efforts if he persists (The worm has turned – but where’s my compost?, G2, 12 September). Having decided that a wormery would be a good way of recycling vegetable matter in my small back yard, I too had a catastrophic false start, involving some drowned worms and the wrong sort of smelly decomposition, but with the help of a new batch of worms, I discovered the importance of incorporating dry material into the worms’ diet.

Torn-up egg boxes are particularly good, and I don’t need a shredder to dispose of details from bank statements when my worms are hungry. For years now, my wriggly little friends have been providing me with small amounts of compost and, more usefully, enough of a miraculously effective liquid plant feed to provide a copious supply to me and all my gardening friends. What’s more, whatever I feed to my worms isn’t going to landfill. Hang in there, Adrian. Be good to your worms, and they’ll be good to you.
Chris McConway
Newcastle upon Tyne

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Diet of worms has to be right for compost success | Letters

Readers respond to Adrian Chiles’s report of his struggle to create compost from his organic waste using a wormery

Along with, no doubt, many other vermophiles, I’d like to reassure Adrian Chiles that wormeries do work and that his worms will handsomely reward his efforts if he persists (The worm has turned – but where’s my compost?, G2, 12 September). Having decided that a wormery would be a good way of recycling vegetable matter in my small back yard, I too had a catastrophic false start, involving some drowned worms and the wrong sort of smelly decomposition, but with the help of a new batch of worms, I discovered the importance of incorporating dry material into the worms’ diet.

Torn-up egg boxes are particularly good, and I don’t need a shredder to dispose of details from bank statements when my worms are hungry. For years now, my wriggly little friends have been providing me with small amounts of compost and, more usefully, enough of a miraculously effective liquid plant feed to provide a copious supply to me and all my gardening friends. What’s more, whatever I feed to my worms isn’t going to landfill. Hang in there, Adrian. Be good to your worms, and they’ll be good to you.
Chris McConway
Newcastle upon Tyne

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Let’s move to Lancaster, Lancashire: it's grander than you might think

A slightly forgotten city of excellent pubs, doughty inhabitants and beautiful buildings

What’s going for it? Grander than you might think, Lancaster, if you think about it at all. Only intrepid tour coaches make it this far, leaving this slightly forgotten city of excellent pubs, doughty inhabitants and beautiful buildings largely for the Lancastrians. Its severe castle, high on the hill, looks ripped enough to withstand a meteorite, while the streets and squares below, curling round the foot of Castle Hill and spreading up to Dalton Square and the Town Hall, are thick with columned porticoes, churches and stone Georgian townhouses. This grandeur came at a cost, of course, one mostly paid by slaves. Lancaster was once the fourth largest slave trade port in England after London, Liverpool and Bristol, a fact it finally acknowledged in 2005 with a memorial to the millions amid the warehouses and wharves on St George’s Quay. Far more searing, though, is a tiny 18th-century grave to a slave who died soon after arriving, lonely amid salt marshes by the seashore just outside the city, at Sunderland Point. Residents and schoolchildren tend it still, with flowers and painted stones.

The case against… More could be made of the city’s riverfront; and recent developments and buildings don’t live up to the city’s heritage.

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Let’s move to Lancaster, Lancashire: it's grander than you might think

A slightly forgotten city of excellent pubs, doughty inhabitants and beautiful buildings

What’s going for it? Grander than you might think, Lancaster, if you think about it at all. Only intrepid tour coaches make it this far, leaving this slightly forgotten city of excellent pubs, doughty inhabitants and beautiful buildings largely for the Lancastrians. Its severe castle, high on the hill, looks ripped enough to withstand a meteorite, while the streets and squares below, curling round the foot of Castle Hill and spreading up to Dalton Square and the Town Hall, are thick with columned porticoes, churches and stone Georgian townhouses. This grandeur came at a cost, of course, one mostly paid by slaves. Lancaster was once the fourth largest slave trade port in England after London, Liverpool and Bristol, a fact it finally acknowledged in 2005 with a memorial to the millions amid the warehouses and wharves on St George’s Quay. Far more searing, though, is a tiny 18th-century grave to a slave who died soon after arriving, lonely amid salt marshes by the seashore just outside the city, at Sunderland Point. Residents and schoolchildren tend it still, with flowers and painted stones.

The case against… More could be made of the city’s riverfront; and recent developments and buildings don’t live up to the city’s heritage.

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The best burnt orange items for the home – in pictures

Add an autumnal glow with this season’s hottest colour, from a velvet armchair to geometric flooring

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The best burnt orange items for the home – in pictures

Add an autumnal glow with this season’s hottest colour, from a velvet armchair to geometric flooring

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Network Rail failed railway arch tenants in £1.5bn sale, say MPs

Taxpayers could face costs if space has to be repurchased for engineering works – report

Network Rail failed to act in the interests of tenants and the taxpayer when it sold off £1.5bn of railway arches, sacrificing an important asset for short-term gain, according to MPs.

A critical report from the public accounts committee has found that the controversial sale of thousands of arches will also mean future tenants have fewer rights – and existing tenants no longer have an option to extend their leases.

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