Worms in soil?
- Thread starter chris h
- Start date
Juicy Fruit
Active Member
only if it were all organic mix soil and even then worms have there own needs.
Nullis
Moderator
A couple worms isn't going to result in any kind of benefit, and they need to be an earthworm species which is more tolerant of various conditions including captivity in shallow containers (such as the red worm). Your soil mix needs to be prepared properly for them; a well draining, absorbent and airy medium is required. Coco coir, sphagnum peat moss and humus are examples of good amendments. Your mix also needs to include organic matter for them to consume, and pulverized kitchen and garden wastes can be added periodically (things like coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit/veg peels/scraps, eggshells, fan leaves and waste from the previous crop). The body of an earthworm contains a great deal of moisture, and the environment needs to be kept very moist as well.
I haven't been able to include earthworms themselves in my grows yet, although I have been interested in doing so and would like to hear from growers that do. The moisture issue would be my primary concern as you cannot let the medium dry out to any extent or the worms will probably die. You would have to water constantly, or perhaps rig up some drip irrigation. I assume that keeping the medium moist at all times is exceptable due to the presence of the earthworms and their promotion of the soil structure.
I haven't been able to include earthworms themselves in my grows yet, although I have been interested in doing so and would like to hear from growers that do. The moisture issue would be my primary concern as you cannot let the medium dry out to any extent or the worms will probably die. You would have to water constantly, or perhaps rig up some drip irrigation. I assume that keeping the medium moist at all times is exceptable due to the presence of the earthworms and their promotion of the soil structure.
snew
Well-Known Member
Worms take time to produce castings. You have to feed them. The addition of food for the worms will produce heat as it decays. Heat that you don't want. Buy a bag or red worms and give it time for them to compost. There are many good threads here about vermicomposting. read them and you'll find the info you need. When I added my own worm castings to my soil, I didn't realize that there where still some worms in the mix. They just died. It was stinky. Lucky it was not enough to hurt my plants, but the worms would have been much more beneficial composting more foe me to add later.
Dwezelitsame
Well-Known Member
i have a worm farm for composting i run water through it to collect a worm shit juice and use it on garden
i sometimes collect casting dump out humis typ stuff they live in as you remove top of pile they retreat down inside you remove they go down and inside
light bothers them and they like to stay moist then i use this on garden
so i use worm shit juice and worm castings but my worms stay in the worm farm
good luck
keep em green
1Luve
i sometimes collect casting dump out humis typ stuff they live in as you remove top of pile they retreat down inside you remove they go down and inside
light bothers them and they like to stay moist then i use this on garden
so i use worm shit juice and worm castings but my worms stay in the worm farm
good luck
keep em green
1Luve
robweiser
Member
[
QUOTE=Nullis;4868028]A couple worms isn't going to result in any kind of benefit, and they need to be an earthworm species which is more tolerant of various conditions including captivity in shallow containers (such as the red worm). Your soil mix needs to be prepared properly for them; a well draining, absorbent and airy medium is required. Coco coir, sphagnum peat moss and humus are examples of good amendments. Your mix also needs to include organic matter for them to consume, and pulverized kitchen and garden wastes can be added periodically (things like coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit/veg peels/scraps, eggshells, fan leaves and waste from the previous crop). The body of an earthworm contains a great deal of moisture, and the environment needs to be kept very moist as well.
I haven't been able to include earthworms themselves in my grows yet, although I have been interested in doing so and would like to hear from growers that do. The moisture issue would be my primary concern as you cannot let the medium dry out to any extent or the worms will probably die. You would have to water constantly, or perhaps rig up some drip irrigation. I assume that keeping the medium moist at all times is exceptable due to the presence of the earthworms and their promotion of the soil structure.[/QUOTE]
I've been using earthworms for over 2 years with great results.the 1st year I grew some without and some with.it seemed the ones with stayed healthier,produced bigger buds,and no soil problems.so in return I've continued to use worms with great results!.this is just my experience with them.as I I did some with and some without. And the ones with had a noticeable out come.
QUOTE=Nullis;4868028]A couple worms isn't going to result in any kind of benefit, and they need to be an earthworm species which is more tolerant of various conditions including captivity in shallow containers (such as the red worm). Your soil mix needs to be prepared properly for them; a well draining, absorbent and airy medium is required. Coco coir, sphagnum peat moss and humus are examples of good amendments. Your mix also needs to include organic matter for them to consume, and pulverized kitchen and garden wastes can be added periodically (things like coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit/veg peels/scraps, eggshells, fan leaves and waste from the previous crop). The body of an earthworm contains a great deal of moisture, and the environment needs to be kept very moist as well.
I haven't been able to include earthworms themselves in my grows yet, although I have been interested in doing so and would like to hear from growers that do. The moisture issue would be my primary concern as you cannot let the medium dry out to any extent or the worms will probably die. You would have to water constantly, or perhaps rig up some drip irrigation. I assume that keeping the medium moist at all times is exceptable due to the presence of the earthworms and their promotion of the soil structure.[/QUOTE]
I've been using earthworms for over 2 years with great results.the 1st year I grew some without and some with.it seemed the ones with stayed healthier,produced bigger buds,and no soil problems.so in return I've continued to use worms with great results!.this is just my experience with them.as I I did some with and some without. And the ones with had a noticeable out come.
Figong
Well-Known Member
Agreed on this... would go with castings, and if you need to aerate the soil, or it's too compacted/not proper.. cut it with perlite - will help with drainage too.
Rising Moon
Well-Known Member
A coupe of experiments done by fellow site members, using Blumat drip systems vs. wet/dry cyles have shown that plants grown with the drip system yielded more dry product and were overall healthier/grew faster. Deep organic techniques allow worms to be integrated into a system very well. If you have a dialed in soil mix, focused on quality castings, compost and humus, as well as rough coco/peat,and a 10 gallon pot or larger worms will happily live and breed. Topdress with canna mulch/botanical herbs to feed them and your good to go.
Cann
Well-Known Member
yeah the worms don't need much beyond moisture and some living organisms in the soil to feed on....no need to topdress food scraps IMO. canna mulch will definitely suffice 
a while back I topdressed about 1'' of quality castings onto a clone in a square 1/2 gallon pot, when I went to transplant the other day I found a few baby red wigglers in the rootball. must've been a few cocoons in the topdress. the baby wigglers got dusted with mycorrhizae
but i'm sure theyre fine....now part of a 5gal no-till that i'm sure has a few living worms in the mix...friends!
oh, and I have a worm bin right now that is just compost and a handful of red wigglers...they are working it and slowly converting the whole thing to vermicast. the worms don't need food scraps...they just love it lol. you can starve them and they'll still do their work, albeit slower and without reproduction for the most part. just gotta have some life in the soil...they don't eat the food after all...just the organisms.
oh, and i need to get some f***ing blumats!!!!
a while back I topdressed about 1'' of quality castings onto a clone in a square 1/2 gallon pot, when I went to transplant the other day I found a few baby red wigglers in the rootball. must've been a few cocoons in the topdress. the baby wigglers got dusted with mycorrhizae
but i'm sure theyre fine....now part of a 5gal no-till that i'm sure has a few living worms in the mix...friends! oh, and I have a worm bin right now that is just compost and a handful of red wigglers...they are working it and slowly converting the whole thing to vermicast. the worms don't need food scraps...they just love it lol. you can starve them and they'll still do their work, albeit slower and without reproduction for the most part. just gotta have some life in the soil...they don't eat the food after all...just the organisms.
oh, and i need to get some f***ing blumats!!!!
timcervantes57
Active Member
I was reading somthing that said if the pot is too small or there are a bunch of worms not getting fed they'll eat your roots ? Opinions ?
They might inadvertently sheer off a few microscopic root hairs in their travel, but they don't eat things that need chewing (like roots) because earthworms don't have teeth. They'll clean up your decayed roots after they rot if you're doing no-till and not disturbing the soil. That's a good thing because the extra processing by the worms speeds up their decomposition and mineralization process. Worms love a good thick organic mulch over the soil to keep it moist. Most of the baby worms in my grow are always hanging out just under the hay mulch the the upper humus layer underneath. The mulch also helps with the wet/dry cycle issue by keeping the upper soil horizon moist with lots of microbial activity going on, recycling organic material back into nutes that feed my plants.
Dosmokethereefa
Well-Known Member
I've used live worms since going organic, if you grow no till the worms consume the old plant however they will eat live roots of young seedlings so I start them in seedling mix and only transplant to my no till pot once the plant has a good root system on her after about 4/5 plants I do have to either rest the pot a few month let it dry right out so a lot of the bigger worms die or till riddle with a fine riddle and use the worms in a new pot or chuck in the compost heap, even when I riddle the eggs make it thru if I neglect to do this the population can become to dense and they start to consume nutes the plant needs as well as making the medium nitrogen toxic via too much poop!
Week4@inCharge
Well-Known Member
Jumped on this red wiggler thing for the idea of just having worms in my pots keeping the soil happy. Do they feed off the dry amendments added to the soil or is something like dropped leaves and/or clipped cover crop enough for them to survive off of? I recently did my (scheduled) final top dressing for this grow and one of the pots I dragged 3 worms to the top by accident rubbing the dry amendments into the soil. They were convulsing pretty bad like they didn't like the top dressing. They died. Was it the violent uprooting of them that did it or maybe a huge pH swing from the soil and the dry amendments?
Worms will live fine in a pot. They must always have a moist place (not soaking wet), and food. Worm's can't really digest lignin and things with dry hard cellulose. Bacteria need to break it down some first. That would happen continuously where your mulch layer meets the ground if environmental conditions aren't radically out of whack. I've had worms in my indoor soil for more than 3 years now without adding more. They have multiplied and it still freaks me out how many there must be in there today years later. Lol