Soil Mites...Good or Bad?

greasemonkeymann said:

i'm sure if you took the wormcasting and stuck them in the freezer it'd take care of them.
But who knows if that sterilizes your castings though, and thats sorta the whole point behind castings... the microbes.
I mean yea, it's humus too...

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luckily i haven't faced any bugs of this size in the castings, and i don't want to see them. i don't know if i'd want to stick worm castings in my freezer, it's bad enough i've got the worm food in there waiting for them

undercovergrow said:

luckily i haven't faced any bugs of this size in the castings, and i don't want to see them. i don't know if i'd want to stick worm castings in my freezer, it's bad enough i've got the worm food in there waiting for them

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I reaaally wouldn't worry about it, the way I look at it is simple, the things that eat your plants?
Aren't in your compost, cuz there isn't any plants in there to eat.
Knowhatimean Verne?
I've used outside compost for two yrs now, and the only bugs I get are the mites that are alllllll over the place out here.
No gnats, thrips, aphids or anything, just spider mites
Heh... as I am re-reading this, it's not re-assuring at all...
trust me though, my mites don't come from my compost..

greasemonkeymann said:

I reaaally wouldn't worry about it, the way I look at it is simple, the things that eat your plants?
Aren't in your compost, cuz there isn't any plants in there to eat.
Knowhatimean Verne?

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i'm not following that at all and i'm going to blame it on the fact that i'm smoking right now, so i'll need to come back later and reread that

undercovergrow said:

i'm not following that at all and i'm going to blame it on the fact that i'm smoking right now, so i'll need to come back later and reread that

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hmmm.... man I wish I was where YOU are..
Stone cold sober...
that's all right... fixing cars isn't recommend to do whilst high.
Gimme about 70mins...

Wetdog said:

They BELONG there. I would worry if I DIDN'T see bugs in my soil or worm bin.

They break down stuff that make it easier for the microbes to break it down further.

Do not bomb the good guys! REALLY!!

Wet

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Exactly what Wet said. Bugs are a part of soil, don't kill them unless you are really sure you have some sort of bad pest in your soil. Those soil mites are definitely beneficial, and the population will balance out over time with proper watering.



P-

I would look closer rover beetles good pred mites goods root aphids bad.. not all bugs are good and those are big which makes me think bad can you get a better look if they look like below you have root aphids

Isn't crab meal introduced into the soil mix supposed to kill the bad bugs?

PopTop said:

Isn't crab meal introduced into the soil mix supposed to kill the bad bugs?

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not exactly.
crab meal just has chitin in it, which helps the plant combat the bugs, but crab meal doesn't kill anything at all