Worms and composting?

Nutrients
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Hello :pray:t3:,

I am currently prepping my outdoor vegi garden and doing other yard work. I’m doing some new landscaping in some areas and am digging up some smaller trees in others. I’m finding huge beautiful worms everywhere. I’m in central Iowa. I have not down anything yet but would like to build a castings farm- I guess. I’ve switched to using castings and buy online, but I would like to try. We compost already. I am on my third indoor vegi stage and want to be as self- sufficient as possible.

I need to read about worms. Anyone make their own castings?

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Youtube has a ton of people showing their methods.
Just need the right space.
I might do it myself as I have an old barn thats unused at the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=worm+farming

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@Eminor7 you can get on YouTube look up “old Alabama gardener” check out his worm garden and compost give you good ideas

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Yes, I make my own vermicompost anyway. My initial plan was to turn my old root balls back into pure worm castings, but the way I have my worm farm set up makes them difficult to separate out.

So what I did instead was, after the roots and kitchen waste that I added were gone (2-4 months) I just started using it as my potting soil, worms and all, when I’m transplanting into my final pot for flower. I’ve never used them for seedlings though, only established plants. @Mcsketcher

In addition to the kitchen waste, I also like to feed them everything I can from my retired weed plants. I blend up trimmed fan leaves from the harvest (with water and spoiled fruits and veggies) and top dress with the old root ball. Keeping the food buried reduces fruit fly/fungus gnat population. I also top dress the whole sandwich with neem seed meal, which also helps keep them in check.

Anyway, just offering a window into my process, it’s not the only way. There’s really not much to it, as long as they don’t dry out you could go months without feeding or checking on them at all and they’ll just keep chomping away doing their thing.

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@CurrDogg420 My plan was basically what you’re doing. I’m just not very far along in the process. I wouldn’t have used it with seedlings, it was kinda a desperation move… And then my soil got here early… I’ve considered digging them up and replanting… That might be worse… Everything I do is organic and from what I’ve read worms won’t eat seedlings unless there’s nothing else… So, Im just going to let it ride… See what happens. Worst case scenario I lose a couple seeds. Thanks for the info though… I hadn’t thought of neem seed meal yet…

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Thanks for the responses. I will read it all this afternoon. :+1:t3:

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