Worm castings is the perfect plant food if your desire is to have a bountiful and lush rose garden. The worm castings (worm poop) that the redworms produce is very rich in nutrients and is perfect for the garden and the plants love them. The earthworms, specifically in this case, feed on the organic material that you provide to them. The final result is worm castings, actually the (poop) from the worm, is magnesium, potassium and other vital nutrients are found in these castings and they are used to improve potting soil with nutrients as they are used up.

Worm compost is created from organic waste through the use of redworms. This is how it works,redworms are given organic matter which may be fruit and vegetable waste, manure and other organic material such as dead plant matter around your home. When the redworms eat it, their natural body processes excrete the waste called castings. These earthworm castings can be used to improve soil in the garden and in fact with any of your plants. Worm castings do not smell bad at all, as a matter of fact they smell like freshly tilled garden top soil.

Vermicomposting (Earthworm composting) is known to be the way of nature recycling its dead plant matter. The compost not only improves the soil, but also enables it to retain moisture and in the end all your house plants will be stronger and better able to resist disease. earthworm castings also assists in repelling pests too so it actually serves multiple purposes.

Here is how the red worms help is by assisting with the decomposition of organic matter such as vegetable scrap, banana peels, coffee grounds and even crushed eggshells and turning it into valuable earthworm castings that is mixed in with your soil. People even use grass clippings, leaves and manure in the earthworm composting process that also help in improving the texture of your potting soil. When we grow our garden, or even plants in containers, the minerals and nutritional value of the top soil is depleted, and it needs to be inriched again or the location stops being producted for growing anything. The only thing you should not use in the worm composting process is meat, dairy products,cooking oil,acid foods such as orange peels.

By using worm castings it should prevent you from having to buy fertilizer at the store, saving you money, but it doesn’t stop there. It is also a natural insect repellent which will eliminate your need of buying any chemicals to put on the plants. It is already known that the pesticides in use today are actually harmful to people, and any chance you have of eliminating their use should be taken. Would you use any chemicals and pesticides on your lawn were your kids play?

As we work toward becoming a “green” world, earthworm composting makes a great deal of sense. It’s a great way to help in keeping so much garbage from making it into the landfills and those involved will actually be learning more about our environment. The use of worm castings goes back hundreds of years maybe even thousands. Fishermen love worm composting as well because it grows some nice size fishing worms.  

Jack Pollard is a worm farmer enthusiast, and enjoys helping others get started in this amazing hobby. You can learn more about vermicomposting and using worm castings at his website Pollardworms.com

This entry was posted on Monday, October 4th, 2010 at 11:17 am and is filed under Gardening Plants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.