Vermicomposting-Worm Farming

[doccat5]

I've only been doing this about 10 months. I have 2 rubbermaid bins in my spare bedroom and find this just fascinating. We are getting ready to harvest our first castings soon, I can hardly wait.

These are fascinating little critters and the bins are loaded with new baby worms and egg cases. So interesting.

I have red wigglers (Eisenia fetida). They are the species most commonly used for vermicomposting. There are various commercial sites that you can find on the internet as well as plans for both commercial made and homemade vermicomposting bins.

I became interested because the worm castings are such a rich source of organic material to add to my garden. And you have to treat this type of casting just as you would any other type of animal manure. It's quite strong, so diluting it with water and applying it as a foliar or regular liquid fertilizer. I find this to be especially good for my roses. I happen to love rugosas which can be a bit fussy about fertilizer. The worm "juice" works very well and makes for very healthy and prolific, big blooms.

[trout lily]

This is a quote from a NHPR show, Something Wild, a collaboration of several NH wildlife groups. "I was amazed to learn that most of our earthworms are invasive species in New Hampshire! And they are causing damage to our forests.
According to researchers, any native species of worms we had would have been destroyed by the glaciers thousands of years ago. So where did our worms come from? European settlers brought worms with them in the potted plants they carried from their homelands to the New World. Many anglers, thinking that worms actually help the environment, dump their leftover bait worms at the end of the day. The same problem happens when gardeners import worms for their compost piles. And some researchers think that worm eggs are brought from one location to another in the dirt on car tires.
Although worms can be great for your garden, they aren't so great for the forest. Many forest plants depend on the thick layer of organic material that lies on the forest floor. This includes leaf litter and all of the spongy stuff that's already decomposed below the leaves. Many plants and animals depend on this material, and scientists are beginning to find that areas with a lot of worms are showing declines in the thickness of this organic layer. The worms are literally eating up the forest floor. The researchers are also seeing declines in the populations of many of the plants that depend on the organic matter, such as trillium, wood anenome, and solomon seal.
There are some things you can do to help. For starters, take home your bait worms when you are done fishing, and don't add worms to your compost or garden. And in the fall, take your leaves into the woods to dump, not to your transfer station.
Worms are invasive species that can affect our woodlands - who would have thunk it?

[doccat5]

Hmm, why would you want to waste the leaves when you could add them to your compost?

Vermicomposting, for clarification, or at least when I started this thread, refers to growing worms in a controlled environment and harvesting their casting to use as a organic fertilizer.

I'm still not sold on worms are the bad guys and are eating the forest floors.......OH MY GASP! I understand there is now an ongoing study for a more detailed examination of what is taking place.

There are at least 18 identifiable species of worms out there and the scientists still don't know enough to make a good judgment call on what they eat. Some seem to be very specific in their choice of diet. Which gives this whole question a new twist. If the worms in fact are causing this damage, how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys? And what do you do about it?

Interesting.

[TheLorax]

Ouch, I'm going to have to concur with trout lily yet on the other hand all vermicomposters I know are painfully aware of the concerns and have been extremely conscientious about only harvesting the castings.

Many gardeners are beginning to question whether earthworms are good for the long haul or not. Much research out there with more on the way indicating they may not be good for all types of gardens. While non native earthworms may actually be great for many cultivated gardens they don't appear to be so great for forests, natural areas, or woodland gardens which is where they are escaping to from our gardens. Worms don't respect property boundaries.

Here are some links to the flip side of the coin as pertains to the existence of some earthworms in our soil. This is merely another point of view to consider as there are mounting concerns out there associated with introduced earthworms. Here are some of the issues North American woodland gardeners may be facing-
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives...rms/index.html
http://www.ecostudies.org/people_sci_groffman_earthworms_summary.html
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/sustainable/2004su_worms.html
http://magazine.audubon.org/exotics/exotics0403.html
http://www.wvnps.org/earthworms.html
http://darc.cms.udel.edu/ansr/factsheet.doc
http://www.nrri.umn.edu/worms/forest/index.html
http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=26633
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0102_030102_earthworms.html
Excerpt from National Geographic’s site-

Plants such as ferns "are rooted in the forest floor, [therefore] if the forest floor is disturbed or destroyed, it makes sense that some of the plants would decline," said Groffman, of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Declines in other plants, such as the northeastern trout lily (Erythonium), have also been anecdotally linked with exotic earthworm invasions, he said.

Earthworms cause basic changes in the structure, biology, and chemistry of soil, said Patrick J. Bohlen, a soil biologist at the MacArthur Agro-Ecology Research Center in Lake Placid, Florida. "Whether that is beneficial or not, depends on the location," he said.

Some exotic earthworms, such as L. rubellus, are examples of species that take advantage of human disturbance of the environment, said Paul F. Hendrix of the University of Georgia's Department of Crop and Soils Sciences, in Athens.

This following sums up the situation with earth worms. Excerpt from here-
http://www.uark.edu/misc/ents/invasives/european_earthworms.htm

There are 8 species of European earthworms invading forest in the northeastern U.S. Some of them, such as Dendrobaena octeadra, an epigeic species that lives in the duff, but does not eat the duff, have no negative impacts that we can see.
Several other species such as Apporectodea (3 species, known as angle worms), Octolasion tyrtaeum, and Dendrodrilus rubidus, are endogeic (they live in the soil), and they have some impact on the forest. They have lateral branching burrows.
Then there is the genus Lumbricus, with two species. L. rubellus (known as the leaf worm, and epi-endogeic species) which completely changes the forest floor, by eating the duff, thus changing the type of seedbed, and the species of plants that can germinate there in the future. It also kills the standing crop of tree seedlings, ferns and wildflowers, in some cases no seed source is left. The duff is consumed within a few days in any one spot. I often see exposed fine root systems of plants when this species is invading.

Finally there is L. terrestris, the night crawler, which is in the anecic functional group, meaning that it lives in vertical burrows, and eat fresh litter. They prevent the forest floor from being reestablished by eating all of the litter that falls each year.

All of the earthworms cement soil particles together, and replace a group of native insects that are more efficient at aerating the soil than the earthworms, so that the soil becomes hard and dry when the worms invade.

What this all amounts to is a re-engineering of the entire ecosystem. Less water infiltrates the soils, nutrients are less available, and the seedbed is different. Therefore, the forest type will change, or even be converted to savanna, as is happening to old growth hemlock in some parts of Sylvania.
A large scientific literature is developing on this forest decline syndrome as we have started to call it. The really unique thing about invasive species that are ecosystem engineers is that they know no ownership
boundaries, and can thus destroy remaining 'protected' old growth.

Any worm that I find on my property is going to be European or Asian as there are no earthworms that are indigenous to my area. Keeps it simple for me as I don’t need to learn to identify which worms belong and which don’t because all are introduced. All worms I come across in my gardens end up tossed out on the driveway for the birds or on a plant ledge in a preform pond I have specifically installed for raccoons with the lowest level of the pond that is filled with a little bit of water being reserved for Rusty Crayfish which is another species that is not indigenous to my area. This helps me keep the raccoons out of other areas on my property by providing them with their own personal buffet and also provides me with a place to dispose of the earthworms and the rusty crayfish that I come across when I garden. The raccoons will eat them and they will bring their young to the area to teach them how to “hunt”. They like the water being in the little perform because they seem to like to dip everything they eat. This is how I do my best to address the earthworms that are here in my woodland areas. Earthworms that I find in my perennial gardens I leave alone unless they are leaf worms or the unmistakable big nightcrawlers and those I will toss in to the raccoon pond because they are a little bit too good at doing what worms do best. For what it is worth, I was able to grow White Trout Lilies (Erythronium albidum) here for the very first time two years ago by removing the worms from the area where I planted them. Ferns planted in areas of my woodland gardens where I have removed earthworms are performing remarkably better than ferns planted in areas that I never got to. People who garden in woodland areas might be experiencing difficulty establishing some types of plants because of the existence of earthworms.

[doccat5]

Well, good luck growing food crops for people, hun. The castings from those "killers" make it possible to not have to use synthetically manufactured fertilizers, don't destroy or deplete the soil. It's a trade off as far as I can see. I'm still try to figure out why worms are moving to the forested areas anyway. The food sources are not exactly the stuff of a worm banquet. Of course leaf mold is one excellent source for them. Hmmm , wonder if that's related.
It will be interesting to see what further study determines. And I wonder if the areas that the worms are native too, have the same problems?

Controlled conditions that allow a gardener to harvest the rich material and btw reduce waste going to landfill is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Worms will handle almost all veggie scraps, etc you will give them. The biggest problem is not over feeding them.

[TheLorax]

I'm totally new to vermicomposting. All I have is a rubbermaid bin. That's as far as I got. How on God's green earth could I overfeed a worm? And what exactly happens to it when I overfeed it? Does it blow up and explode like George Pig when he ate too many donuts?

[doccat5]

You will make the worms sick and believe me it's a mess to clean up. They don't do well, and it takes some time to bring them back up to speed.

[TheLorax]

Your Worminess, describe for me if you dare... exactly how one is able to tell the difference between a sick worm and a healthy worm. This ought to be good. Inquiring minds want to know. I'll go get a bowl of popcorn and some Good and Plenty and wait.

[doccat5]

Well, hopefully you have strong stomach. Worms stop digesting the veggie waste, which because they are not eating it, will begin to smell less than delightful. You will also begin to find dead worms in and about the leftovers. Clean up is not much fun.

[TheLorax]

Ewwwwwwwwwww ick. So much for my popcorn and Good and Plenty. You destroyed my snack.

I promise I'll be a good worm mommy and that I won't overfeed them... providing you tell me what, when, and how much to feed them.