Worm Castings

Anyone know where you can get worm castings from in the uk? I've found them on growell's website but they charge an extra £5 shipping for every bag. So if I wanted five bags they'd add an extra £25 on top of the standard delivery charge.

Also, when its been raining and you walk through a park or lawn area and you see loads of little mud deposits on top of the turf, are they worm castings?

Chees in advance

Baffled

you can make worm castings if not availible......
get a troth like grow bed made...line it with a liner...
then throw tons of newspaper in there....i mean TONS....then throw in a shit load of worms in there..the worms will eat the news paper and shit out the great poop we like to have...pretty soon the bed will get filled up...if you cant find worms...you can get them urself...hope this helps..

"Also, when its been raining and you walk through a park or lawn area and you see loads of little mud deposits on top of the turf, are they worm castings?"

Yup, the worms come out of the soil after a rain so they dont drown... those mounds are worm castings.

issack said:

you can make worm castings if not availible......
get a troth like grow bed made...line it with a liner...
then throw tons of newspaper in there....i mean TONS....then throw in a shit load of worms in there..the worms will eat the news paper and shit out the great poop we like to have...pretty soon the bed will get filled up...if you cant find worms...you can get them urself...hope this helps..

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News papers? Crazy. I might have to give it a try. You can get night crawlers at the bait shop for like $2 for a big ass cup full.

You can build a worm farm with a rubbermaid and red worms, not nightcrawlers!! If you must you can start with newspaper, but quickly switch to kitchen trash and compostable lawn matter. The nutrient rich castings are derived from garbage, not so much paper. I have seen red worms eat thru celery ends, onions, and damn near anything else. My buddy uses coffee grinds from local shops for his and I use plenty of his castings. I love organic gardening and hope you build a worm farm yourself, until then you could buy castings but your free ones will work better. Any more questions you could pm me if you wanna.

yeah baffledmonkey, try a search for wormcastings or eartworm castings here or at google and you'll have the instructions to free castings spelled out for ya.I built my own from the 'net and remembering how my grampa raised worms.also by searching wormcastingsyou'll find out that the castings you buy are never as good as you can make your on your own because harvested casting worms are fed a simple non-varied diet.you'll use lots of different foodsources,so you'll be providing yourself with superior castings

avoid meat and fats.

here's a tutorial

http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/worms/neighborhood/index.html

here's my wormy links
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/bse/442-005/442-005.html
http://www.cityfarmer.org/wormcomp61.html

These guys make a wonderful product...
www.wormgold.com
Good luck in your quest.

I love this sight!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can pourchase liquid bat guano's as well.

I have tried to get high phosphoras (sp) bat guano's; soma style; from france and it was not expernsive, but they just could not get through customs I guess.

I went with budswell liquid guano and another mexican bat guano liquid from a hydro online store.

Good Luck

Avid

Vermicomposting:Tales from the wormside of life

Vermicomposting:Tales from the wormside of life

From the folks over @ wormdigest,org
bys.z.frankel

"Designer vermicompost"
...
Used wisely, compost tea is a promising ally to the farmer in maintaining and restoring plants’ health.

The importance of increased knowledge of compost biology has not been lost on some vermicomposters. A number of castings producers make use of the knowledge available to them, and aim to produce a superior worm castings product, and to produce it consistently.
They themselves use and are asked to produce “designer castings” for specific kinds of plants, and castings for specific uses. This is just the beginning of a trend that I think will continue and expand.

“There are too many producers of poor castings,” say many industry leaders. It’s understandable. Many castings producers began their operations as vermicomposters, who accept (and are sometimes paid to take) organic waste, simply “disposing” of it via worms.
Their feedstock can vary from week to week and often contains material of low nutritional value to worms.

Plants fed with these castings don’t respond as well as those fed with castings produced for fertilizer.

Vermicomposting for waste management and vermicomposting for castings production are clearly different. “Garbage in, garbage out,” says Jay M. of Hill Rabbit Farm . He insists, “We really need to teach people what castings are and how to use them. There’s a misunderstanding that goes ‘if the worm lived in it, that’s castings’”.

When I spoke with a producer of high-end castings at a recent conference, he lamented the low quality castings on the market today.

They give a poor impression of what worm castings can do. He knows his product is much, much better, but it’s a hard sell to store owners who don’t see the difference, and don’t want to consider his steeper prices. Then came his chance— a donated bag of castings was used on the nursery’s office plants—and the great response got the owners’ attention.

I know something of what he’s talking about. I recently went to my local nursery, to look at bags of castings. On this visit, only one brand sat on the shelves. The label read “Pure worm castings”, and prices ran $20 for 18 liters (about 0.6 cubic feet) and $29 for 30 liters (about one cubic foot). I took a bag and examined the fine-grain, jet-black castings inside. Again, in a discussion with the castings producer at that conference, I learned a reason for the color. “It’s black peat, mined in Canada. It’s very, very old material, on its way to becoming an oil deposit. There’s very little nutrition there for the worms, and the castings are equally poor,” he explained. Worm castings aren’t always black—the color depends on the feedstock. Black may look attractive to customers, however and that’s what sells the product. (On a previous visit to that nursery, I found castings that looked to be at least one-quarter fine-screened wood. That’s definitely not what comes out the back end of a worm!) Back at the office, I looked at partially dried castings from the four bins we keep. They were a handsome brown.

What is becoming more and more clear is that compost and compost tea (I include vermicompost and worm castings here) are being used to effectively prevent a wide range of plant diseases.

At this point we don’t see pest-killing claims on bag of castings or castings blend (the EPA registration for anything that presumes to act as a pesticide is very expensive).
At the same time, however, we know that plants that receive worm castings are far less susceptible to pests and disease.

We are also becoming more and more adept at designing compost and castings for particular uses, including for tea brewing, and are seeing remarkable reductions in plant disease, and equally remarkable improvement in plant vitality and production.

http://www.wormdigest.org/articles.htmlStarting Off

Vermicompost (aka Worm Compost)

Vermicompost (aka Worm Compost)

is the process of using earthworms to breakdown kitchen and garden waste, to create a faster than normal composting. Compared to ordinary soil, the earthworm castings (the material produced from the digestive tracts of worms) contain five times more nitrogen, seven times more phosphorus and 11 times more potassium. They are rich in humic acids and improve the structure of the soil.

The earthworm most often to be found in the compost heap is Brandling Worms (Eisenia foetida), or Redworms (Lumbricus rubellus). This species is only rarely found in soil and is adapted to the special conditions in rotting vegetation, compost and manure piles. Earthworms are available from mail-order suppliers, or from angling shops where they are sold as bait. Small scale vermicomposting is well suited to turn kitchen wastes into high quality soil where space is limited.

In addition to worms, a healthy vermicomposting system hosts many other organisms such as insects, molds, and bacteria. Though these all play a role in the composting process, the earthworm is the major catalyst for the composting process.

When beginning a vermicomposting bin, add as many composting worms as available. They should be added to moist bedding. Quantities of kitchen waste appropriate for the worm population can be added to the bin daily or weekly. At first, feed the worms approximately 1/2 their body weight in kitchen scraps a day, maximum. After they have established themselves, you can feed them up to their entire body weight.


Bedding

Bedding in a worm bin is the living medium for the worms but is also used as a food source, it is material that is high in carbon and is made to mimic dried leaves on the forest floor, which is the worms natural habitat. The bedding needs to be moist (often related to the consistency of a rung out sponge) and loose to enable the earthworms to breath and to facilitate aerobic decomposition. A wide variety of bedding materials can be used including newspaper, sawdust, hay, cardboard, peat moss, aged manure (meaning the manure has to be pre-composted before use), and dried leaves. Most vermicomposters avoid using any glossy papers from newspapers and magazines, junk mail and shredded paper from offices, because they may contain toxins which will severely affect the system. Also some cardboard cannot be used if it contains wax or plastic, such as cereal boxes, and other boxes designed to hold food items. Surprisingly newspapers and phone books printed on regular, non-glossy pages are heavily regulated by the FDA and therefore use non-toxic soy and Canola based inks (see Soy ink).

Temperature

The worms that are used in composting systems prefer temperatures between 55 and 70 degrees fahrenheit, and temperature of the bedding should not get below freezing or above 85 degrees.

Kitchen waste

* Greens - If too much kitchen waste is added for the worms to process, the waste will putrify.
A balance between "green matter" such as kitchen scraps and "brown matter" such as shredded newspaper for bedding must be maintained in order for the worms to do their work. This balance should be approximately one part "green matter" for every two parts of "brown matter".

Covering the kitchen scraps with a layer of "brown matter" also has the added benefit of reducing odor and insect problems. Avoid grass clippings or other plant products that have been sprayed with pesticides. In a small bin, this includes banana peels which can kill everything in the bin, if heavily sprayed.

* Meats - Although proteins such as fats and meat scraps can be processed by a vermicompost bin, doing so tends to attract scavengers and should probably be avoided. Worms are unable to break down bone or synthetic material.

* Fecal Matter - Fecal material of omnivores and carnivores is unsuitable for composting due to the dangerous microorganisms it contains, though thermophilic composting or other applied heat can mitigate this problem. People have reported successfully using cow, rabbit, or goat manure to help start up the bin. If done, this should be used in small quantities. If you are vermicomposting inside your home, you may want to avoid including manure or dairy products in your compost because they may have an unpleasant odor.

Over the long term, care should be taken to maintain optimum moisture levels and pH balance. In a non-continuous-flow vermicomposting bin, excess liquid can be drained via a tap and used as plant food. A continuous flow bin will not retain excess liquid and it requires extra water to be added to keep the bedding moist. Too many citrus peels in the material to be composted can cause excessive acidity, but this can be mitigated by adding an occasional handful of lime.

Worms as well as other microorganisms in the composting process require oxygen, so the bin must "breathe". This can be accomplished by regularly removing the composted material, adding holes to a composting bin, or using a continuous-flow bin. If insufficient oxygen is available, the compost will become anaerobic. This will provide a host environment for a different type of decay process which produces a strong odor offensive to most people. This type of decay is found in swamps and bogs and is responsible for the stench sometimes found in these environments.


Feeding methods

There are basically two methods of adding more matter to the bin.

* The first method, known as top feeding, is when organic matter placed directly on top of the existing layer bedding in a bin and then covered with another layer of bedding. This is repeated every time the bin is fed.

* The other method of feeding is known as pocket feeding. In this method a top layer of bedding is maintained and food is buried beneath. The location of the food is changed each time and often the bin is fed in more than one location. As bedding runs low more is added. Vermicomposters often use a combination of both methods. Sometimes by not burying the food it can attract fruit flies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worm_compost

Worm Reproduction

Worm Reproduction

Earthworms are hermaphrodites (both female and male organs within the same individual) but cannot fertilize their own eggs.

They have testes, seminal vesicles and male pores which produce, store and release the sperm, and ovaries and ovipores.
However, they also have one or more pairs of spermathecae (depending on the species) that are internal sacs which receive and store sperm from the other worm in copulation. Copulation and reproduction are separate processes in earthworms.
The mating pair overlap front ends ventrally and each exchanges sperm with the other.
The cocoon, or egg case, is secreted by the clitellum, the external glandular band which is near the front of the worm, but behind the spermathecae.
Some indefinite time after copulation, long after the worms have separated, the clitellum secretes the cocoon which forms a ring around the worm.
The worm then backs out of the ring, and as it does so, injects its own eggs and the other worm's sperm into it. As the worm slips out, the ends of the cocoon seal to form a vaguely lemon-shaped incubator (cocoon) in which the embryonic worms develop.

They emerge as small, but fully formed earthworms, except for lacking the sexual structures, which develop later. Some earthworm species are mostly parthenogenetic, in which case the male structures and spermathecae may become abnormal, or missing.

worms will lead you to the promised land....although they are blind and will never see it.....but they will poop on it.....

http://www.gottagrowdist.com/products/vierras/index.html

I wish this company were available in UK but buy the liquid and try it! -cheers, gp

Are worm casting low in NPK or are they fairly high??? Peace

F1

Castings are great and can be used as a full soil substitute.

Hmmm.... i live near several fields with loads of worm castings on them some days after the rains.....The Ibis birds go crazy feasting on the worms and there are tons of droppings left over..... I dont suppose anyone has any ideas on how to gather such small mounds of poop over such large areas?

A worm casting...

A worm casting...

(also known as worm cast or vermicast)
is a biologically active mound containing thousands of bacteria, enzymes, and remnants of plant materials and animal manures that were not digested by the earthworm.

The composting process continues after a worm casting has been deposited.
In fact, the bacterial population of a cast is much greater than the bacterial population of either ingested soil, or the earthworm's gut.

An important component of this dark mass is humus.
Humus is a complicated material formed during the breakdown of organic matter.
One of its components, humic acid, provides many binding sites for plant nutrients, such as calcium, iron, potassium, sulfur and phosphorus.

These nutrients are stored in the humic acid molecule in a form readily available to plants, and are released when the plants require them.
M.Appelhof, Worms Eat My Garbage, 1982, p.68.

Are worm casting low in NPK or are they fairly high?

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Earthworm castings provide natural Nitrogen, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, and numerous other trace minerals with this typical analysis:
Total Nitrogen (N)
0.86% Water Insoluble Organic Nitrogen 0.86%
Available Phosphoric Acid (P2O3) 0.37%
Soluable Potash (K2O) 0.25%
Calcium (Ca) 2.3%
Iron (Fe) 0.72%

Analysis' will vary depending on the diet of the worms

Castings are great and can be used as a full soil substitute.

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(university?) Studies have shown that no apparent additional benefit is observable after approx. 20% castings by volume of a soil mix.

Castings are an expensive component of a mix many times, so unless ones producing suitable quantities of gourmet custom fed worm castings, cost can be a factor (for me anyways.
Coco peat and Perlite are way cheaper for an equal volume compared to castings in my area of the planet. :~)
Bottom line, Whatever floats your boat, go for it.

Happy Growing

i have heard that you can mix a litlle of worm castings when your making a guano tea. is that true? does it work fine ? how much should i put?

currently i´m feeding my virgins with guano tea (high p), 10'g per liter.
any ideas of guano tea recepies?
thanks