Fri 2 Jan 2009
Of all of the soil organisms earthworms are the best soil improvers. Earthworms will dig as deep as three to eight feet into the soil, opening up channels and tunnels that aerate the soil and improve drainage. The tunnels also help prevent erosion by allowing water to flow easily to plant roots and it allows those roots to grow more freely.
They move along like tiny tillers eating organic matter and digesting it into pure humus excreted as casts. Their digestive system works by pulling food into their mouth like a vacuum. The food stores in the crop and is then ground into small pieces in the gizzard. They use both a grinding action and chemical enzymes to break down organic matter mixing it with soil. They also produce a gummy substance that helps hold soil particles together. They feed while moving and will eat almost any type of decaying organic matter.
An earthworm can produce their own weight in castings every 24 hours that is 1/3 pound of fertilizer a year! The casts are a great source of nutrients and a useful soil conditioner as they are five times richer in nutrients than standard soil. Besides the humus content they are full of nutrients that plants can most easily use like nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium and potassium the same nutrients found in bagged fertilizer. Casts also have a high pH and help the soil to store larger quantities of nutrients.
here are some links with further information.
-
Entrepreneurs steel compost worms - Program Manager of Corporate Friends Vermi, Norzana Rafie said, the program launched by the PAC, based on the potential market vermi-culture (large worms) and vermi-compost (worms steel), which is very high. Mega projects …
-
Compost Worms - Your Garden’s Best Friend - The major benefit of having compost worms is that one can do it both indoors as well as outdoors. This facilitates composting all year round. They provide an opportunity to people living in the apartments composting. …
-
Easy Rota for separating worm castings and compost worms - Both specially developed machines yeild a high 99% separation with out stressing the compost worms which are safely separated and stored insude the machine in three waitiung trays. Duration : 0:1:39 …
-
Greenfoot » Blog Archive » Compost and worm farming directory - com
This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called My organic food garden. Below is a list of worm farming resources. To add a link, please post it in a comment below or email me at: greenfoot at email dot com. -
Compost for action - Today is Blog Action Day where bloggers around the world are uniting to write about the environment. I’m covering composting because it’s an easy way help the environment by reducing your household’s waste and improving your soil …
-
Greenfoot » Blog Archive » Build your own worm farm - About five years ago a friend of mine introduced me to worm farming and since then I have become obsessed with the little critters. I now own two commercially produced farms but my first farm was a home made job created from two …
-
Feral Scholar » Blog Archive » Worming - Feral Scholar Making the Connections The law of rape presents consent as free exercise of sexual choice under conditions of equality of power without exposing the underlying structure of constraint and disparity. Let worms eat your organic waste! They will happily turn it into some of the best fertilizer on earth - worm compost, otherwise known as worm castings or vermicompost. This is a fascinating, fun, and easy way to recycle your organic kitchen wastes.
-
How to Compost - Videos - Sitting in the airport yesterday while being delayed, there happened to be a free wifi connection available (thanks Qantas Club!). 7 hours of delay gave me plenty of time to browse through some great YouTube videos on my iPod Touch. …
-
Texas schools required to cut energy use at President’s … - According to a story in today’s Austin American-Statesman, a new state law requires public schools — including “most public colleges and universities” — to post their utility bills on-line and reduce energy use 5 percent per year for …
-
Features in the Gallery: Worms in Space - This image from 2008-12-06 15:57:53 shows a very interesting feature that looks like a giant worm [...]
-
Woolly Worms, Winter & Climate Change - About this time each year I see woolly worms wherever I go. They’re on the sidewalk near my front door, they’re on the highway, they’re on my mind. So yesterday as we met to develop a presentation on climate change and our role in …
-
Award for Recycling at Conservation Center - “We don’t have a garbage disposal, we have composting worms. Our hope is to get it going well enough to harvest some worms for fishing with kids in the pond.” They read to groups from a book called “Garbage Monster” then rotate through …
Related posts:
- Compost Systems (pros and cons)
- The Compost Pile
- Seal in your Compost Pile with Tomato Plants
- Rice Hull Compost
- What Are Legumes
