Vermiculture

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Comment by Joy Williams on May 31, 2009 at 9:42pm

Sara, worm castings are the BEST things you can give your plants.

Comment by Joy Williams on May 31, 2009 at 9:41pm

Gail, same thing, read my post.

Sara, ya, you betcha they are expensive. That's why I started the group to teach people how to do this themselves. You may have to pay for some worms if you don't live where they show up, but once you start you don't need to buy the worm castings. It's SUPER simple.

Comment by Joy Williams on May 31, 2009 at 9:36pm

Michelle, I'm hoping he'll read it here. but if I hear nothing I'll post it to his "gardening blog".

Comment by Joy Williams on May 31, 2009 at 9:34pm

amount of work? er....
Ok, Kay whoever told you this was full of.... castings. It's the simplest thing i've ever done in gardening. First of all, I created conditions I wasn't even aware that I was doing. We have a method of creating, what we call "poopariums" for the alpaca manure. We set up a rectangle of straw bales and then dump the alpaca poo in there and cover it with a tarp. well in one spot where we did this, red wrigglers showed up and we had let it sit for about a year and they did their work and so the whole THING was converted to worm castings. So that's about 12 cubic feet of worm castings. We didn't DO anything, we just let it sit.

In the other case, our county provides a "can-o-worms" to anyone who attends a class that they give on vermiculture. They are doing this to encourage home composting so they have less waste to deal with. So Tom and I went, and it's tremendously SIMPLE. You just put old kitchen scraps in every 2-4 weeks and not too much. The worms don't eat the actual scraps, they eat the mold on the scraps. I also put strips of newspapers on top every couple of months as bedding. They LOVE coffee grounds, but not onion skins. It couldn't be simpler. In fact it's so easy you forget to feed them because it's so intermittent. My chickens get a lot more scraps than my worms do. But my worms are happily defecating everything they eat, and that's what you want.

Whoever told you this was difficult, hasn't tried it!

Comment by Gillian on May 31, 2009 at 9:14pm

I have just got my composting into a routine - now everyone says oh you need vermiculture! If I am feeding all my kitchen scraps to the worm farm then what would my compost pile get?

Comment by SaraBClever on May 31, 2009 at 9:04pm

I saw worm castings for sale at the garden store and felt like it was a lot to pay for worm poop, in essence. Right now it seems like too much to think about (I can't even figure out composting) but I think when my little boy gets older it's just the type of th!ing he would love!

Comment by Kay Robbins on May 31, 2009 at 8:34pm

I have been on the fence about this. Some of the things I have read had me convinced that I should start a worm bin. Then I have read other things that talk about the amount of work and that it is like having pets to take care of. I hope this group will help me decide.

Comment by Michelle W. Flannery on May 31, 2009 at 8:11pm

Joy, I think you should leave a copy of your comment below on Greg's page and on his "Dirt on Gardening" blog too. He needs to hear this. He is a self-proclaimed expert on gardening, but had no expert explanation for his comment. It was purely a subjective observation. As our friend, Ed Killian, recently said to me... "GO GET 'EM GIRL!" (LOL)

Comment by Joy Williams on May 31, 2009 at 7:57pm

Thanks Michelle. I read your comments to Greg Draiss and then I read his blog and I had to do something because he really is making some mistakes there. The worms in vermiculture are not "earth worms". They are red wigglers, and their primary purpose is to be near the surface of the soil to break things down that are on the surface, they can't survive deep in the soil in fact they are only in the first couple of inches. Earth worms are a different critter, their purpose is to compost soil. They look different too. I should go out and take some pictures. Of course then I wouldn't find them! lol

But there's so much good that vermiculture can do, I felt we really should have a group. No, unlike what David said, it's not a substitution for saving the trees (apparently they are all gone? What did I miss? I have a grove of redwoods on my own land, they aren't gone, YET). What it is, is a way to create a great contribution to the soil. Worm casting tea is fantastic for plants, they love the foliar spray you make with it. I'm spraying my plants tomorrow with it. It will help their immunity and feed them.

I hope Ilex joins, she's doing mega vermiculture in her APARTMENT!

Comment by Michelle W. Flannery on May 31, 2009 at 7:47pm

I've been reading the comments here and there about worms and worm castings, and I'm learning a lot. I look forward to the concentrated information this group will provide.

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