Managing Red Composting Worms and Worm Castings

Red composting worms loves and flourishes on rotting environments, often found under cow or horse manures. Raising red composting worms won't be a problem if your family produces lots of organic wastes in the kitchen such as Vegetable and fruit peelings, left over from the fridge, bones, Tea bags, coffee filters, meat, egg shells etc. or lawn wastes i.e. dried fallen leaves, grass clippings, grinded wood etc. any organic materials, Red composting worms will eat it and do the job. In the summer when it's fairly warm, Red composting worms will double their activities in mating and will eat nonstop. Red composting worms will eat up about 1 and a half times of their own body weights daily and will produce worm castings up to 75% of their body weights. Think of it, you're cutting down on your garbage while you produce worm castings to organically fertilize your garden soil.

Bins or worm farms that are used to house red composting worms or any Epigeic worms need to be wide and shallow. Assorted materials for beddings like dry leaves, grass clippings, shredded regular papers or cardboards are ideal and must be fairly moisten. Avoid getting your beddings wet or soggy because it will conflict the air flow for your red composting worms. When this happens, just add and toss more beddings that are highly absorbent like shredded cardboards or papers. On managing worm compost from your worm composter bin, changing the bedding if needed, is simple. Before placing their food for the day, make a space for the new beddings by pushing the old ones in one side. Then add the fresh beddings on the other side with the food. Surely, all of the red composting worms will go to the fresh beddings where the food is at and you can collect the old bedding.

Red Wiggler worms (Eisenia Foetida) are at the top of the heap in producing excellent compost materials because of their superb qualities as red composting worms. Red composting worms produces more potent worm castings or organic fertilizer that is rich in nutrients for plants' growth. Red composting worms producesworm castings that are 5 Times Richer in Nitrogen than the typical the "hot" compost. Plants use Nitrogen mainly for foliage growth, flowering and fruit bearing. Red worm castings are 7 Times Richer in Phosphates which is very important for the plants' roots and flowers. It is 11 Times Richer in Potassium that also helps in plant growth, immune system and overall health of plants. Red composting worms being classified as Epigeic means, these worms won't burrow any deeper than 12" from the soil surface making them excellent composters while doing a great job in keeping the soil loose and aerated.

From worm castings, one can make worm tea to use as a potent liquid fertilizer best for indoor potted plants and backyard gardening as well. The materials to use for making worm tea are:

• Worm composting with Worm castings
• An Old sink or anything that is improvised
• Screen to be placed as filter below the sink
• Bucket to collect the worm tea.
• Water

Just place the worm composting with the worm castings inside the sink with the bucket placed underneath it to collect the juices. Add water and let it soak for a while as the juices flow into the bucket. After squeezing all the worm tea juices, the compost will still be a great soil additive or soil conditioner. Worm tea can then be poured into a spraying bottle, directly spraying the liquid worm tea into your potted plants' soil or garden soil.

Worm tea from worm castings are also an effective pesticide against vegetable pests such as: Cabbage moths, aphids, asparagus beetles, blister beetles, celery worms, Onion maggots, etc. etc.

Uncle Jim is an expert on Red Wiggler worms. Raising them for more than 20 years now, he has been promoting the importance of the roles that the worms play in our environment. That's why he chose to raise Red Wiggler worms in a farm to share and promote the benefits of these nature's little wonders!

Uncle Jim's seasoned knowledge about worms and gardening has developed many tools for worm composting and gardening that are based on 20 years of experience.