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Using only worm castings for peppers?

stankar

stankar

Hello there,
 
I have a question here which I was thinking about for upcoming season 2019 and that is possibility to use only worm casting to feed my pepper plants growing in soil mix. I'm trying to avoid my biggest problem and that's overfeeding the plants at some point, this season wasn't any exception.
To start with, I was already growing peppers this season using the worm castings and all was good until I messed up with adding more fertilizers.
So my questions are below.
Can the pepper plant live only on the worm castings without using any extra fertilizers and able to produce normal amount of pods?
Does anyone have an experience with it?
When the plants get bigger is it possible to use worm castings more often?
Is it better to fertilize by using only worm castings or combined with a worm tea?
 
Share your opinions, experiences or issues ;)
 
Not recommended.  Some people claim great success with heavy concentrations of compost.  Not my experience.  Whenever I have used more than 5-10% compost/vermicompost, I get mud that hardens to a brick-like state.  That anyone else gets favorable results, tells me that there are different types of worm compost (and just regular compost) and what one chooses to use, must be heavily qualified. (as well as the environmental conditions)
 
Compost isn't meant to be a fertilizer, or substrate.  It's a building block of a healthy soil/potting mix.

Much better to just stick to the basics of good soil/mix building.
 
Why not just work on following feeding instructions, and being less fidgety with the grow process - rather than employing extreme solutions in some other area?  It will make you a better, and more knowledgeable grower.
 
 
 
 
Worm castings are rad, but they do tend to be pretty heavy and i´m not so sure it´ll get your plants enough stuff.  I´ve been growing in 100% mush compost at the community garden (the garden club´s rules) and i haven´t had any problems w/ compaction or water retention; in fact, it drains quite well and stays pretty ¨airy.¨  I DO have some problems with BER in the 100% compost that i don´t have at home, where i grow in a more ¨normal¨ mix of topsoil, compost, peat, gypsum, vermiculite, etc.  I use Alaskan Fish goo in both locations, and I´m happy with the results.  I basically just started growing; i really kinda suck at this, but i´ve never had any problems overusin´ the Alaskan Fish stuff. I think i wanna try some other stuff as well next year, though.
 
I do keep a worm farm and i do add some castings to the mix.  I think it helps; from what i´ve read, it is more about gettin the biofauna up in the soil.  I don´t think i could count on it to provide my plants with enough nutrients.. but, then again, like i said... I basically just started growing; i really kinda suck at this.   :dance:  ;)  :dance:
 
solid7 said:
Compost isn't meant to be a fertilizer, or substrate.  It's a building block of a healthy soil/potting mix.

Much better to just stick to the basics of good soil/mix building.
Click to expand...
The thing is that with a worm castings and lignohumate I have a quite good soil already but I'm thinking about adding extra worm castings after couple months of grow to revive the soil.
 
solid7 said:
Why not just work on following feeding instructions, and being less fidgety with the grow process - rather than employing extreme solutions in some other area?  It will make you a better, and more knowledgeable grower.
Click to expand...
I don't think it is an extreme, it is just another way of growing, instead of using fertilizers to feed the plant, I would be using worm castings to feed the soil to feed my plant, so building a healthy soil and keeping it healthy should be good enough to grow peppers, right?
 
Chilidude said:
Could you not use some kind of organic slow release fertilizer in the pot and just add more maybe month or two later.
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I could and I probably should as I'm overdoing it using a liquid fertilizers. But still, I'm more insterested into worm castings thus the topic ;) Thank you for your opinions though.
 
Edmick said:
I had pretty good results using only worm castings and kelp extract. Could have been a lot better though
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That sounds good, Edmick. Is there a reason of adding kelp extract to already a good soil? Kelp extract is high on potassium which is indeed nice to have extra but the results could be the same even without, don't you think? I'm again thinking about worm castings as a rich soil enhancer containing all major and minor nutrients plants would need.
 
Edmick said:
I had pretty good results using only worm castings and kelp extract. Could have been a lot better though
Click to expand...
 
How'd you do it, though?  Containers?  Raised beds?  Type of worms that made the castings?  Diet?
 
I tried so many times, and it seems there are a lot of tangibles that go into success with compost heavy grows.  I know karoo in South Africa has good luck - but he lives in a dry climate.  Here in my hot, humid climate, any compost I use, turns to mud.
 
I tried another compost grow this season, and had to quit.  I replanted that plant into another mix with 5% of the compost that I used, mixed with 75/20 coco coir and perlite, and that plant is kicking ass now.
 
I just really want to figure out how you guys are getting it to work, because compost grows, in theory, aren't supposed to work. (and most soil building resources tend to reflect this)  Wanting to learn something here...
 
Bicycle808 said:
I use Alaskan Fish goo in both locations, and I´m happy with the results.  I basically just started growing; i really kinda suck at this, but i´ve never had any problems overusin´ the Alaskan Fish stuff. I think i wanna try some other stuff as well next year, though.
Click to expand...
Actually this should have been my setup this season, using a worm castings/worm tea + fish fert, but I still haven't finished my grow fert from previous seasons which I should replace by the fish fert. Depending on the experiences and opinions you all sharing on this thread, I will consider my "plan A" to go with worm castings + fish fert. Thank you ;)
 
stankar said:
I don't think it is an extreme, it is just another way of growing, instead of using fertilizers to feed the plant, I would be using worm castings to feed the soil to feed my plant, so building a healthy soil and keeping it healthy should be good enough to grow peppers, right?
Click to expand...
 
It certainly depends on your perspective.

From my perspective, I want to build high performance grow media.  Compost-only planting violates all of the rules of effective soil building.  As a component, no.  As a sole media, yes.
 
How do you propose to utilize the compost?  Containers or raised beds?
 
Also, if you want a good answer to your question, I'll propose to you my own mix, and a feeding schedule, and ask you to grow them out, side by side.  I have a lot of questions about those who make compost grows work, myself.  So we could both learn from it.  I've failed repeatedly, in my growing area, to get compost to work, on its own. 
 
I'm 1000% confident that my own grow media will outperform compost on any given day.  But...  I would love to make others believers - or be challenged to rethink my own ideas.  Either is good.
 
solid7 said:
I tried another compost grow this season, and had to quit.  I replanted that plant into another mix with 5% of the compost that I used, mixed with 75/20 coco coir and perlite, and that plant is kicking ass now.
 
I just really want to figure out how you guys are getting it to work, because compost grows, in theory, aren't supposed to work. (and most soil building resources tend to reflect this)  Wanting to learn something here...
Click to expand...
I'm not using a compost at all and have never used so far. I'm using different mix this year which seems to be performing better than my previous supermarket soil mixes. I'm using this year 5% worm castings, 5% perlite, 15-20% coco coir, the rest is the supermarket soil mix with nutrients in it.
 
solid7 said:
 
It certainly depends on your perspective.
 
Also, if you want a good answer to your question, I'll propose to you my own mix, and a feeding schedule, and ask you to grow them out, side by side.  I have a lot of questions about those who make compost grows work, myself.  So we could both learn from it.  I've failed repeatedly, in my growing area, to get compost to work, on its own. 
 
I'm 1000% confident that my own grow media will outperform compost on any given day.  But...  I would love to make others believers - or be challenged to rethink my own ideas.  Either is good.
Click to expand...
I should be more experienced grower as this is my seventh season but there is still a lot to learn :) The feeding schedule is one of my problems, I would need ideally a mobile app where you simply marking a day the plant was fed with nutrients, otherwise I will be forgetting to follow up the schedule. I would like to use different mixes and do comparisons but I don't have that much space in my apartment.
 
solid7 said:
If you do this, please post a Glog...
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That is my plan since two seasons back and still couldn't post. I'm having a glogs on our local Chilli forum and didn't have a time to do the same here on THP, although I will do my best to make a glog next season!  :dance:  :party:
 
When it comes to feedings...  If you use a combination of an organic dry fertilizer, and the fish juice, you should never have a problem with overfeeding.  Now, granted, I don't know you, and maybe you're a "gallon of fish juicer per Tbsp of water", kinda feeder...  But I doubt that's true. ;)
 
 
By the way - when I say "compost", that includes worm castings, which are "vermicompost".
 
solid7 said:
 
How'd you do it, though?  Containers?  Raised beds?  Type of worms that made the castings?  Diet?
 
I tried so many times, and it seems there are a lot of tangibles that go into success with compost heavy grows.  I know karoo in South Africa has good luck - but he lives in a dry climate.  Here in my hot, humid climate, any compost I use, turns to mud.
 
I tried another compost grow this season, and had to quit.  I replanted that plant into another mix with 5% of the compost that I used, mixed with 75/20 coco coir and perlite, and that plant is kicking ass now.
 
I just really want to figure out how you guys are getting it to work, because compost grows, in theory, aren't supposed to work. (and most soil building resources tend to reflect this)  Wanting to learn something here...
Click to expand...
Only reason I did it was because the owner of the hydro shop I went to told me thats all he used for his peppers. I figured heck, this guy could try to sell me on any number of high dollar nutrients he has on the shelf but he recommended that so I figured it was sound advice. I was growing in containers at the time and I topped dressed the casting and raked it in a little bit otherwise it would turn into a cake and make watering difficult. I added the kelp extract every 2 weeks. They did ok but ive since moved on to other methods with better results.
 
Edmick said:
Only reason I did it was because the owner of the hydro shop I went to told me thats all he used for his peppers. I figured heck, this guy could try to sell me on any number of high dollar nutrients he has on the shelf but he recommended that so I figured it was sound advice. I was growing in containers at the time and I topped dressed the casting and raked it in a little bit otherwise it would turn into a cake and make watering difficult. I added the kelp extract every 2 weeks. They did ok but ive since moved on to other methods with better results.
Click to expand...
 
Oh, I thought you meant you were growing in pure vermicompost...  Sorry, misunderstanding.
 
solid7 said:
In fact, i thought the OP was suggesting a grow in pure vermicompost.  Maybe I was mistaken about that, also?
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Yes, I might not be clear in the original post, this thread should be about growing peppers in a soil mix with just adding vermicompost (worm castings) instead of using fertilizers. From the posts so far it sounds the worm castings are not enough to provide sufficient nutrients to get a nice harvest compared to soil mix using regular fertilizers like fish juice.
Apologies for the confusion.
 
No, apologies are mine.

You are asking if a top dressing of worm castings is enough - to which I say, no, it is not.  But if you add fish juice, you're golden.  I usually recharge my top dressings about every 6 weeks.  If you're in a container, 1/2" of worm castings is sufficient.
 
I prefer to use a dry organic nutrient, just in case of heavy rains, but fish juice alone - even without the worm castings - will do the trick nicely.
 
stankar said:
Can the pepper plant live only on the worm castings without using any extra fertilizers and able to produce normal amount of pods?
Click to expand...
yes
 
stankar said:
Does anyone have an experience with it?
Click to expand...
i did
 
 
but wait!  check your worm castings first!!
high quality worm casting should look like coffee grounds.   
 
== easiest way to get quite good quality worm casting ==
you can set up a worm farm in plastic basin like this.   make a lot of small holes at the bottom. 
:shame: don't add soil.
 
28881713897_ede1552e4c_z.jpg

 
next step is to put 300 grams of live african night crawler in this container.  keep moist but not wet.
let them eat up. it should take 4 weeks to eat up.  
 
it's very easy, right.  good luck and have fun!
 
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