-
Happy Birthday ICMag! Been 20 years since Gypsy Nirvana created the forum! We are celebrating with a 4/20 Giveaway and by launching a new Patreon tier called "420club". You can read more here.
-
Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!
Castings
- Thread starter mliokv48
- Start date
Worm castings should be as fresh as possible. That should explain why the consensus is that any commercial product is going to be of less quality than a home made product.
One option could be to search the internet for a local worm guy, and try to get some fresh castings for immediate use. This would likely be superior to any 'commercial' product from any garden store.
A bag of castings/vermicompost cannot sit on a shelf, or travel around the country without losing quality. This is my experience but also what you'll read here on the forum. The science to back it up should be that the bacteria/archaea (or other life) won't survive without moisture and oxygen.
Remember, a quality product should be full of life, and teaming with microbes
One option could be to search the internet for a local worm guy, and try to get some fresh castings for immediate use. This would likely be superior to any 'commercial' product from any garden store.
A bag of castings/vermicompost cannot sit on a shelf, or travel around the country without losing quality. This is my experience but also what you'll read here on the forum. The science to back it up should be that the bacteria/archaea (or other life) won't survive without moisture and oxygen.
Remember, a quality product should be full of life, and teaming with microbes
Last edited:
Thank you so much awesome answer !!
Freshness is part of the issue but even if you got commercial castings right from the bin, you'd find that they wouldn't grow as well....the reason being that most of us feed our worms a variety of materials including fresh fruit and veg scraps, etc. The big commercial worm farms usually feed things like scrap newspaper and cardboard as basically an exclusive diet. You can't get out what you don't put it.
I go to some trouble to ensure quality castings like feeding rock dusts, greensand, neem, crab shell, etc directly to the worms and let them break it down. The goodies are there and much more available after the worms have processed it.
You may find some local worm farmers who feed their worms well and you can get it fresh. Give it a shot. I did find some people locally before I started my own worm bins who had decent vermicompost. They were feeding horse manure from horses that weren't getting deworming products and were being fed a high quality organic diet. The vermicompost was really pretty good. Mine is better though.
I go to some trouble to ensure quality castings like feeding rock dusts, greensand, neem, crab shell, etc directly to the worms and let them break it down. The goodies are there and much more available after the worms have processed it.
You may find some local worm farmers who feed their worms well and you can get it fresh. Give it a shot. I did find some people locally before I started my own worm bins who had decent vermicompost. They were feeding horse manure from horses that weren't getting deworming products and were being fed a high quality organic diet. The vermicompost was really pretty good. Mine is better though.
look for Worm Power if on the east side of the map...
dank.Frank
dank.Frank
Wiggle Worm is a nation wide (US) company that helps worm farmers start vermacompost small businesses. You can order directly from them and your worm castings will ship to you from your nearest Wiggle Worm farm.
They also sell worm cocoons so you can grow your own worms.
Burn1
They also sell worm cocoons so you can grow your own worms.
Burn1
SpicySativa
Member
I agree with jcmjrt and BurnOne.
- Home made castings are usually better because the worms are fed a much more diverse diet. Banana peals are a good source of potassium, coffee grounds provide nitrogen, crab meal fosters chitinase producing bacteria (pest control), etc, etc, etc.
- Commercial products tend to be fed a diet that lacks diversity. Less diversity in your inputs results in less microbial and nutritional diversity in your finished castings.
- Before my worm bins were cranking, I used Wiggle Worm. It's some crumbly black goodness, but I get more noticeable results from my fresh castings.
- Home made castings are usually better because the worms are fed a much more diverse diet. Banana peals are a good source of potassium, coffee grounds provide nitrogen, crab meal fosters chitinase producing bacteria (pest control), etc, etc, etc.
- Commercial products tend to be fed a diet that lacks diversity. Less diversity in your inputs results in less microbial and nutritional diversity in your finished castings.
- Before my worm bins were cranking, I used Wiggle Worm. It's some crumbly black goodness, but I get more noticeable results from my fresh castings.
When looking for castings out of a bag i take a handful and dump some water on it. Quality casting have excellent capillary action, and hold thier structure. Poor castings dissolve into a puddle of mud.
Thats for castings as a texture amendment, castings as an innoculant is a different story.
Thats for castings as a texture amendment, castings as an innoculant is a different story.
ICMaggotMe
Member
Here's a nationwide directory of vermiculture resources. Perhaps you can find a worm wrangler in your zip code.
https://www.bae.ncsu.edu/topic/vermicomposting/vermiculture/directory-by-state.html
https://www.bae.ncsu.edu/topic/vermicomposting/vermiculture/directory-by-state.html
SpicySativa
Member
Or just buy a $10 Rubbermaid bin from the hardware store and a few $2 cups of red worms from your local bait shop.
The worms won't know the difference...
The worms won't know the difference...
