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Worm castings question

peterjack

peterjack

Organic guys please help! while I am looking online where to buy compost close to my area, instead i found this http://toronto.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-home-outdoor-plants-fertilizer-soil-ORGANIC-WORM-CASTINGS-W0QQAdIdZ472759164 and i want to try this. if i will be planting on a 5 gallon pot how much of a worm castings should i put? 1 gallon and 4 gallon soil mix?
and please let me know if the deal is good or a rip-off! haha thanks
 
why would you buy worm castings?

http://www.redwormcomposting.com/getting-started/

worms cast their own weight in poop each day, so if you start with a pound of worms, you should get around a pound of castings per day.
worm castings are also not "hot" like other fertilizers. No matter how much compost or worm castings you use, your plants wont be burned like with chemical fertilizers.
 
thismembername said:
why would you buy worm castings?

http://www.redwormcomposting.com/getting-started/

worms cast their own weight in poop each day, so if you start with a pound of worms, you should get around a pound of castings per day.
worm castings are also not "hot" like other fertilizers. No matter how much compost or worm castings you use, your plants wont be burned like with chemical fertilizers.
Click to expand...

Maybe the guy doesnt want a worm bin to deal with. I myself buy castings locally and they last for awhile.

To the OP.. There is no wrong amount to add.. Just note they will cause your mix to retain moisture so... Just add enough to get your soil to the consistency you want etc.
 
I don't know anything about the seller, but the price looks great. I think a pound in the store is in the 7-11 USD range (if I remember right).

I have also read that 10-20% (memory must be going, can't remember where I heard this) is a good amount to add to the soil.

I have worm bins but I have only been doing it since the fall. We are about to build a bunch of raised beds and having something like this in bulk at that price would be great. I don't have that much castings yet.

Michelle
 
Proud Marine Dad said:
You do not get one pound of worm castings per day from one pound of worms. Whoever told you that is full of it. lol
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this ratio is so common you can find it on about every website regarding worm composting / casting.

For example;

"http://www.redwormcomposting.com/quick-facts-about-worm-composting/
It is widely believed that a composting worm can process the equivalent of it’s own weight in waste each day. Under highly optimum conditions (not likely to be attained with a small home system) red worms have been found to process multiple times their own weight! This is very much dependent on the foodstock and how well managed the system is."

This, like everything else, is dependent on the correct conditions. If there is no food for the worms to eat (not just food scraps, but decomposing food scraps), then they will not be able to produce castings.

I have seen some pretty basic home setups that produce a good amount of castings. The reason why I ask the question, Why would you pay for worm castings is three fold;

1. Its easy to make it yourself with minimal investment.
2. Castings are so beneficial to your garden, that you will most likely want to continue to buy the product, which would make it more feasible to have your own worm bin.
3. The cost of castings is sort of high when bought, when compared to doing it yourself.

I don’t do other forms of composting due to space limitations, but worm composting takes up very little room, and is very economical.

It's a personal choice, but the cost to get into worm composting is cheap and not very labor intensive.
 
I make my own and I would still buy that!
5$ for 35lbs is a steal, and I don't care what anyone says that is a good deal. What has he got to lose 5$...
Thats lunch, I can go a day without lunch.

I have heard that red wigglers can "Eat their weight in a day" Does that mean its ready? No most of that wight is water.
That is an impressive statistic, but having a worm bin, I feel it takes a minimum of 2 weeks per tray, and that is like pure grass clippings. Things like banana peels take closer to 45-60 days assuming you have a bin full of hungry worms.
 
to answer your question, i would use the equivalent of a 1 liter milk container worth of casting for the 4 gallon mix.

that is a good price, i pay $10 for a 15Litre bag.

i tried the worm thing years ago, before the industry refined their methods and it was a mess. red wigglers in totes; back then their was no internet and you would be lucky to find a book on the subject - all you would get when you purchased the small bag of worms was a leaflet outlining worm care. today, you can get nice clean bins, stackable and sectional with great drainage and just a breeze to collect castings.

i also toss in a handful of ground alfalfa and ground seaweed.

good luck
 
Al-from-Chile said:
because he doesnt want to wait 5+ months? ... at least this was the reason why I bought mine ;)

cheers
al
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http://www.redwormcomposting.com/reader-questions/how-much-waste-can-worms-eat/
http://www.redwormcomposting.com/reader-questions/the-castings-conundrum-part-i/

"I myself have seen what really high densities of worms are capable of, so I have little doubt that you could produce a decent quantity of castings in a 14 day period – and as long as the process itself was optimized (with a good moisture/oxygen balance), whatever you were going to call the end product, I’m sure it would possess at least some beneficial properties (it would more than likely be superior to the starting materials)."

14 days is really fast to expect large amounts of castings, but 5 months, come on. Within a month you can expect some good quality and high enough quantity castings to be worth your wild.
 
thismembername said:
this ratio is so common you can find it on about every website regarding worm composting / casting.

For example;

"http://www.redwormco...orm-composting/
It is widely believed that a composting worm can process the equivalent of it’s own weight in waste each day. Under highly optimum conditions (not likely to be attained with a small home system) red worms have been found to process multiple times their own weight! This is very much dependent on the foodstock and how well managed the system is."
Click to expand...

way back when i had my worm farm, I read similar claims on the internets ... truth to be said - I never even came close to a 10% worm to castings ratio let alone a 100% daily ratio ... lucky to get their weight out as poop in a month (thats a 3% ratio)

cheers
al

Cayennemist said:
I make my own and I would still buy that!
5$ for 35lbs is a steal, and I don't care what anyone says that is a good deal. What has he got to lose 5$...
Thats lunch, I can go a day without lunch.

I have heard that red wigglers can "Eat their weight in a day" Does that mean its ready? No most of that wight is water.
That is an impressive statistic, but having a worm bin, I feel it takes a minimum of 2 weeks per tray, and that is like pure grass clippings. Things like banana peels take closer to 45-60 days assuming you have a bin full of hungry worms.
Click to expand...

mine went berserk on melons and cantaloupe (¿) - everything else - I can relate to you seems to take forever to disappear... so I have a hard time visualizing that as well.

I eventually moved on from worms to chicken (they get all our kitchen scraps now) - and are so much more productive (we get up to 7 eggs per day) for the same food waste.

I can get worm castings fairly cheap here locally, 45 lb. for 20 dollars ... and since my wife sells our country-eggs, we make much more from them than from worms - and the kids dig them more - they are more lets say "interactive" than worms ;-)

cheers Al
 
1500lbs. for$100?! I'd be taking my truck up right now except it would cost me a doller a pound extra for the gas and three weeks of driving. $5 for 35#s? If I ever see that I'll have a handfull of 5s.
 
I respectively disagree. Ontario ministry of agriculture states that "Earthworms ingest about 75% of their body weight/day; a 0.2 g worm eats about 0.15 g/day."

"Conclusion: A properly designed vermicasting system will process organic waste into vermicast in 22–30 days."


http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/10-009.htm

I'm fairly certain you can speed up this process by preparing the added food scraps. IE. not adding fresh scraps and waiting for them to decompose. Instead, save scraps continually, and add scraps to you bin that are already decomposing.

there are tons of links around the net that claim you can yield equal weight castings to worms, I would realistically expect at least 50 percent, if you hit 75 your doing great. Your yield is directly in relation to the food source, health of the worms, and age. An under-producing worm bin could be for a ton of reasons.


To stay on topic, yes, 5 bucks for a pound of castings sounds great!!! You may want to consider the quality of these castings however.

for the sake of it, you may want to view this article.

http://www.redwormcomposting.com/worm-castings/worm-castings-vs-vermicompost-whats-the-diff/

100% castings is almost impossible
 
120 degrees is pretty hot, but for most hot temperatures at or below 100'ish degrees should be no issue. The trick is, if you are using a plastic bin, during the summer you have to ensure you have good air flow and keep it moist. its best to open the plastic bin up so it doesn't turn into a plastic sauna, and keep it in the shade.

these are worms. worms don't rent air conditioned apartments, they live when its cold and hot.
 
I would say 1/4 of the soil as worm castings would be fine... 1/4 worm castings-1/4 coco-choir-1/4 perlite-1/4 vermiculite would be a nice soil.

And although you will need to buy worm castings for this* time around, I would still recommend that you start your own worm farm. Its great fun, easy, convenient, clean, and you can take great pride in the fact that you are fertilizing successfully with nutrients that you* are responsible for making (well, with assistance from the worms that is)!!!!!
 
[background=rgb(255, 244, 228)]Your yield is directly in relation to the food source, health of the worms, and age.[/background]
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you forgot variety of worm, certain varieties consume foods at different rates - that is why most vermiculture sites promote red wigglers. earthworms and dew worms though eat and poop don't do it as efficient as other types. ontario gets lots of big fat juicy dew worms but they are only good for aerating and fishing. i used to pick them the night before a fishing venture. i remember growing up in ontario and seeing many farms with cardboard signs nailed into trees or on fence posts "dew worms" but they were sold for fishing and i don't ever remember seeing a sign saying worm castings for sale.

though i do have worms, mainly earthworms, they are quite sleepy and you have to dig deep in the ground to find them as they do like the cooler temperatures. the red wigglers i used for my indoor composting venture eventually found their way into my outdoor compost bin but they never survived the winter.
 
not directed at anyone in particular

Some people seem to think this is an argument about buying it vs making it. Or about how fast it is possible to make it.

My point is, at that price, do both.
 
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