Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] vermiculture

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] vermiculture
  • Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 18:17:23 -0800 (PST)

I want to add a "second" to Dieter's advice below.  Why do all that work and take the time to do it?  Let the worms do their thing in the soil without any time or work by the farmer/gardener.  Have the soil covered to protect it.  No water runoff, etc.
 
Ken Hargesheimer

Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com> wrote:
Here is the opposing argument:
 
According to a calculation I read the other day, 200 to 400 earthworms can live
in 1 square meter of good garden soil, supposing further that each worm can
produce its own weight of high quality compost each day, this translates into
about 1 cm of compost over the entire surface or about 50 truck loads of high
quality compost per hectare (about 2.5 acres) a year.  Try to make this amount
of compost in your vermiculture facility!
If on the other hand, you raise earthworms in a box to liberate them in the
garden, the earthworms raised on a high nutrient diet in the box may not do
very well when left to their own devices in the wild.
 
What I mean is that it may be more advantageous to create the right conditions
in the garden or in the field for earthworms to prosper and multiply rather than to
raise a few in a box.
 
Dieter
 

 


Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.


Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page