Composting With Red Wiggler Worms

This article describes to you why composting is good to both soil and plants. You learn about the red wiggler worm and about how you can use it to have a 100% natural and beautiful garden.

Red Wiggler Worms (Eisenia foetida) are the most common type of composting worm. As they feed, red wigglers swallow great quantities of organic material, digest it, extract its food value and expel the residue as worm castings, which are very rich in nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. The life of a red wiggler worm in general is hard. Their bodies are about 70% protein; rich food for many predators. Their major enemies are insect eating birds, like robins, and mammals like moles. If you watch a robin hunting, it pauses, cocks it head and then hops. The robin's ears can actually hear the red wiggler moving under ground. But the red wiggler worm, although sightless and ear-less can feel the vibrations of the bird on the surface. It's the deadly game of survival.

Red wiggler worms can process large amounts of organic matter and, under ideal conditions, can eat one and half times its body weight every day. They also reproduce rapidly, and are very tolerant of variations in growing conditions.

Worms will breed most often for one of three reasons:

o There is an abundance of food available.
o Their survival is threatened by environmental conditions.
o They find themselves in an area which is saturated with suitable mates.

Why composting?

The worm excretes a soil-nutrient material called worm castings. This is why wise farmers have historically wanted to have healthy worm populations living in their fields. Worms are at the bottom level of the food chain but are critical to healthy soil. Recycling the organic waste of a household into compost allows us to return badly needed organic matter to the soil. In this way, we participate in nature's cycle, and cut down on garbage going into burgeoning landfills. Worm composting is a method for recycling food waste into a rich, dark, earth-smelling soil conditioner. The great advantage of worm composting is that this can be done indoors and outdoors, thus allowing year round composting. It also provides apartment dwellers with a means of composting.

In a nutshell, worm compost is made in a container filled with moistened bedding and red worms. Add your food waste for a period of time, and the worms and micro-organisms will eventually convert the entire contents into rich compost.

The compost can be mixed with potting soil and used for houseplants and patio containers. It is an excellent mulch (spread in a layer on top of the soil) for potted plants. If it is screened, it can be added for potting mixes for seedlings, and finely sprinkled on a lawn as a conditioner. It can be used directly in the garden, either dug into the soil or used as a mulch.

Where can you also use worm castings?

o flower gardens
o veggie gardens
o rose bushes
o orchids
o trees and lawns
o herb gardens
o anywhere you want healthier plants & soil

Made through a brewing process which runs distilled water through Red Wiggler worm castings, the nutritious elements and microorganisms of the castings are captured in a concentrated liquid form, named worm tea. By using worm tea on your plants and gardens, you put healthy microorganisms back into the soil where they thrive and multiply, creating a much healthier growing environment for your plants.

Hope you had a good time reading this. Remember to always c\keep your garden healthy and 100% free of chemicals, using worm tea.