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Goodwood, Ontario, Canada

I've purchased a worm condo from Costco and will pick up a couple of pounds of red wigglers today. I was wondering if there are certain foods I could feed the worms to make better castings. A local supplier of worm castings claims they contain Nitrogen 2.34%, Phosphorus 0.56%, Potassium
1.00%, Calcium 2.28%, Magnesium, 0.42%, Sulfur 0.56%

3/22/2012 7:18:59 AM

Gays Mills, Wisconsin

casting analysis differs depending on input

if input (food, bedding, moisture, temp, Ph) are the same from one batch to the next then an analysis would be similar, otherwise it can vary

all castings have microbial life that is able to release the nutrients in the castings/soil (compost/food/bedding)to be readily available for uptake by plants

[organic substances are being broken down by digestion]

feedstuffs can be incorporated like kelp, grain meals (alfalfa, soybean, wheat etc..) that might boost the analysis in certain areas, but worms can get to much proteins and suffer so research/experiment a bit if you add grains.

hope this helps, John

3/22/2012 12:23:04 PM

Seattle, WA

Well put John, that's an excellent answer! I know Tim Wilson of Microbe Organics likes to force to worms to re-eat the castings (he uses horse manure, but he's on a larger scale too). The quality of the castings seems to increase quite a bit (the microscope videos he's shard are quite amazing in regards to biological activity, particularly fungal hyphae).

3/22/2012 12:54:42 PM

Goodwood, Ontario, Canada

Thanks. Tim Wilson's web page was awesome.

3/23/2012 7:43:04 AM

President - GPC

Use some of this in your team and look at it under the scope.....neat stufff!

3/27/2012 3:41:39 PM