Thank you for the great information.
I understand that red worms will eat most
fruits and vegetables.  If you focus
on more sweeter foods, does it have an effect
on the castings?  For example...can you change
the effect of the castings, based on
the diet?  or is the compost the same,
 no matter what you feed them? (obviously as
long as their diet consists of recommended foods,
 not oily, dairy, meats, or
others,)  Thank you for your time.

-Chris

Thanks Chris for your question. It is a very good question. In fact, from what I have read and seen, I’m not sure that anyone knows the answer to this question for certain. Much research is still being done on the effect on castings. I’m not aware of any that have been done or that are currently being done that differentiate castings produced from different feed stocks. Based on my current knowledge, I will provide my best guess as to how feedstock may affect the quality of the castings.

Worm castings are known for their microorganisms that help drought tolerance, disease and pest resistance, along with a ton of other good things for plants. Worms create these microoganisms while they are digesting their food. Their digestive tract is designed to select the good helpful microorganisms and eat the bad ones. Meaning that whatever the worms eat comes out better than what it put in, as far as microogranisms go.

The only difference feedstocks will really have on the quality of the castings is the nutrient content(my hypothesis). The worms can’t magically create nitrogen or phosphorus, all they do is help promote good microorganism to thrive. Since castings are often so expensive, people don’t typically worry about the nutrient content of the castings as much, since you only use a little bit of castings per plant anyway. The idea is to get the nutrient content of your soil correct first, then add the castings in for all of the great benefits the microorganisms provide.

Hope this answers your question. If anyone else has a question. Please feel free to contact me through the contact page. I would be happy to answer them!

Worm Cocoon

Above is a picture of a worm cocoon, you can click on it to make it bigger. My camera isn’t the greatest so it was hard to get a good shot. It should at least help you tell the relative size and color of a cocoon. There were a few worm castings on it as well, those were the black things. Well, I grabbed two cocoons and two cups and put one cocoon in each cup.

Worm Experiment

Well there are the cups. Here is a look inside one of them:

Cocoon Experiment

I added a little bit of bedding back in so the worms have somewhere to be when they hatch. I was carefull not to get any more cocoons. I wish I had some more spare bedding. I’m afraid they will dry out. I finished it off, by putting a newspaper cover on top and using a ruberband to secure the newspaper. I’ll report to you guys later the results… hopefully I keep it moist and everything works out.

I harvested the castings the long, boring, hard way. I sorted everything by hand. I have really neglected the bin for a long time and it really needed to be harvested. It had been about a year since I started it and I had never harvested it!

I’m starting to take a lot better care of my worms now and am no longer neglecting them. When I harvested, I only had 1/2 lb of worms when I started with 1lb. YIKES! Looking at the bin now, there are a ton of baby worms and I’m pretty sure my population is growing. I’m going to keep track of their weight next time I harvest to see how fast they are reproducing. I don’t totally remember when I harvested, but I am going to say it was on 6/6/09 just so I have a fairly accurate reference point and I don’t forget later on.

So here is a look inside my bin:

Inside my European Worm bin

There does seem to be a good amount of fungus gnats, I may try to let the bin dry a little to try to get rid of them as the bin was on the wet side anyhow. There were also a few seeds that had shot up pretty quickly, I just plucked the fruit out of the dirt and let the worms eat it.

Up next I will write about my experiment to see how many worms hatch from a European Nightcrawlre cocoon.

I was holding one of my worms and then he peed on me! Some yellow liquid came out of him and it smelled kinda funny. What was that?

Below is a picture of a worm ‘peeing’ while I’m holding it.

Worm Coelomic Fluid

So what is it?

This fluid is really Coelomic Fluid. Worms usually release this fluid when they are under stress (like if a bird was trying to get them, or someone was handling them a little rough).

The fluid is store in the worm’s coelom, this is just a cavity that runs the length of the worm near the skin surface. Some people have noted that this fluid smells bad like garlic or onion. I did not personally smell anything when my worm ‘peed’ on me in the above picture. I thin this may have something to do with the worms diet, but I can’t be sure on that. I basically feed my worms shredded cardboard, newspaper and veggie peels.

If anyone has any other questions, I’d be happy to answer them personally or on this blog, just contact me.

Ball of European Nightcrawlers

This being a new blog and all. I figured it would be a good time to go over some of the basics, like what to feed your worms. Their are too categories of food for your worms, the bedding and the feedstock.

Bedding

Their are a few things good bedding should do. It should not be compact, so air can get through and the worms can breath. It should retain moisture so you don’t have to constantly water it (otherwise your worms could dry out and die). It should be edible to your worm, well I guess it doesn’t have to be, but that would make harvesting castings a real pain in the butt if you had to sort through the bedding and castings.

So with that said here are some good beddings: Shredded cardboard, shredded paper, coconut coir, and peat moss. I would recommend using what you have readily available, no need to spend big money buying things for your worms when they will do just fine composting your waste(plus it is better for the environment).

Feedstock

As a general rule, worms can eat anything that ever lived (eventually)! With that being said there are some things that you should probably avoid.

Avoid: Acidic foods, Greasy foods, Meats, and Dairy.

Worms can tolerate some acidic food as long as you do it in moderation. Meats and dairy should be avoided since it can attract maggots or wild animals! I have heard that greasy foods can clog the worms pores in their skin (which they use to breath) so they should be avoided too, but I am not sure on that. I just stay away from them as a precaution.

Good idea: Fruits and vegetables, grass clippings, leaves, manure.

One thing to note on the manure is that you need to make sure the animal it came from was not recently wormed, or this could kill all of your worms FAST! I have read of many people who had to learn this the hard way, don’t be one of them.