Best brand of Worm castings

[Bmac1]

Micro Maxx organic ewc is the brand i just bought for my new mix. It looked to be high quality and its made with european night crawlers if that makes any difference.

 

[hyposomniac]

Wow,

One needs to get worm castings from Archer, Florida to get reasonable iron levels in worm castings. Amazing!!

There's a catch, like the best wine, these castings are fortified. In this case with .6% humic from leonardite. Hence the 'black castings' brand name
Anyway they look way better than the worms way from Agway. But I fear I'm setting up for humic overdose, as my gypsum is also fortified this way.

 

[TexasTea]

I have a Worm Farm 360 going in my basement right now. Only been a few weeks but everyone seems happy. I like the idea of making my own live castings....that said, there may be some advantages to buying some too if you want certain ingredients that average person cannot get. I got some OGS castings from the Boogie Brew company recently and they are supposedly top notch with very carefully selected and sourced feed stock. They shipped USPS also so you guys in AK are good to go.

 

[moose eater]

I have a Worm Farm 360 going in my basement right now. Only been a few weeks but everyone seems happy. I like the idea of making my own live castings....that said, there may be some advantages to buying some too if you want certain ingredients that average person cannot get. I got some OGS castings from the Boogie Brew company recently and they are supposedly top notch with very carefully selected and sourced feed stock. They shipped USPS also so you guys in AK are good to go.

Did they ship 4th class retail (insurable and track-able), or USPS flat-rate in a larger box, or (???? something else)?

"How much for how much?"

I located a worm farm out of Kasilof, Ak a while back (over 500 miles south of me, though on rare occasion I still visit the Kenai Peninsula), but I'm guessing their out-put was/is limited, or their marketing is limited, anyway, as the only places I found on-line that were handling their castings were stores located just to the north of them, near Soldotna/Kenai.

I also have no idea what they're feeding the critters, though I would guess that could be answered fairly easily with a phone call or more reading.

Still, analysis would be necessary with a new product if taking it seriously, and then it's an assumption to think that quality stays on an even keel. I've seen numerous organic soil amendments change quality or sourcing over time. Guanos, dolomite, etc...

Thanks for the tip/lead!

 

[P-NUT]

Hey hyposomniac Ive bought tons of castings from the wrom farm your talking about in archer. Its been at least 4 years ago but i think it was 700 to 800 for a ton cant remember exactly. They where good castings and no complainta but my homemade are better and way cheaper so I dont buy anymore. Look up black star too. Theyre in north fl too and way cheaper and I had pretty good results with them too. Black star delivers if you buy a pallet and its 7 to 8 bucks a bag for a pallet of 40. Black star are also super cool good people from my experience.

 

[hyposomniac]

Hey hyposomniac Ive bought tons of castings from the wrom farm your talking about in archer. Its been at least 4 years ago but i think it was 700 to 800 for a ton cant remember exactly. They where good castings and no complainta but my homemade are better and way cheaper so I dont buy anymore. Look up black star too. Theyre in north fl too and way cheaper and I had pretty good results with them too. Black star delivers if you buy a pallet and its 7 to 8 bucks a bag for a pallet of 40. Black star are also super cool good people from my experience.

Thanks I'll check out black star.
I got a couple of samples of semi-local (northeast) "boutique" castings at an event and the Florida castings are growing better plants.

 

[EastBayGrower]

i had a friend did some biological testing on a bunch of brands, and hands down the vital bigworm was the best, just .02 from norcal

 

[moose eater]

i had a friend did some biological testing on a bunch of brands, and hands down the vital bigworm was the best, just .02 from norcal

Assuming such sources have a set regimen for items being composted by the worms, and acknowledging that some of us can't (at least for now) engage in home-based worm farms sufficient to provide the volume required, it'd be good to know what the -best- sources feed their worms, both content and amounts, and how strict they are about that..

For years to come, we will (when cleaning) wish we'd build a smaller home. And for years to come, when it comes to lacking space for a suitable worm farm, or other ventures, we will wish we'd build a larger home.

 

[DrBnz]

Worm

Worm

A lot of thought is getting put into worms and poo. I used to struggle there too. I have a method now where I put very little thought or effort into it and I have more poo than I know what to do with.
I live in the city and have limited resources. Plus I make attempts to stay as organic as realistically possible. I use a stackable worm bin and I do BUY one item. But I only spend about $4 a month and that is on the LARGE bags of grocery store KALE. So I use that entire bag to start a layer, I have saved up and stored shredded paper (my favorite is the brown craft paper used for packing) run thru my shredder and saved in a old paper grocery bag. I also have an old rubbermaid trashcan that I save yard waste in. (Mostly leaf material). I also have a pile of "SOIL" that I always have cooking (it has been amended and cooking for months). So the layer consist of one bag of Kale, a fistful of shredded paper, yard waste, and a double fist full of SOIL. Roughly tossed together and close the lid. IF YOU MUST you can add amendments per the internet scientist' recommendations. I already have those in the SOIL.... then leave it alone. If you have to, go back in 3 days and see that the bin has a couple thousand worms in there partying. Looking further down you can see that all layers are different levels of being broken down. Worms everywhere. I don't even sort worms of the layer being harvested. There's so many in the bin, but very few in the lower levels. Just throw them on the target areas as well.
Harvest a layer per month (4 layers is a 4 month total breakdown time) which yields me 18x18x2 inches of fantastic living poo for $4. Other than growing my own Kale, I can't beat that.