Happy lawns with less wormy mess

How can I remove worm casts from my lawn? Miriam, via email

Casts are present on lawns where soil has been ejected from the earth by worms. Casts are good for lawn health but they can be unsightly. Use a wire rake with the teeth pointing upwards. On a dry day, move it side to side over the surface of the soil as this won’t damage the grass but will disperse casts. the whole process but this stops them from getting quite so pongy.

Finally, tumbler bins rotate to speed things up – but you cannot add to them as easily as you can with wooden or plastic bins.

Some local councils offer heavily discounted bins to encourage people to recycle waste rather than send it to landfill. See getcomposting.com for more info.

Wormeries are another great option. Rather than relying solely on micro-organisms to get the job done, they use worms to break down waste as well. As a result, they tend to produce compost faster than other ways of composting.

Wormeries attract creepy crawlies so they are best situated away from the house. Choose a sheltered spot so the worms won’t get too cold.

To minimise fruit flies, wrap the waste in newspaper and avoid adding citrus, spicy foods or anything from the onion family, as the worms won’t like it.

Your wormery compost should be ready in about three months. Start now to have homemade compost ready for spring.

You can compost most household waste that breaks down naturally. So try fruit and vegetables that are past their best, stale bread, coffee grounds, ripped up cardboard, crushed egg shells, old tea bags ( look out for plastic- free versions) and even vacuum cleaner dust.

Compostable waste is split into two categories – brown waste, which is rich in carbon and slow to rot, and green waste, which is rich in nitrogen and quick to rot.

To identify which category items belong to, think about whether they go off quickly. For example, banana skins are green waste because they rot quickly in your fruit bowl, while