I find that my red worms who live outside do really well, so long as the soil is kept moist and they are fed often with vegetable/fruit trimmings. I often will add some partially composted leaves from my compost bin. Although, I find that they do well without much attention in my raised beds that have lots of organic compost, I like to keep one 4ft square bed that is shaded and kept covered with cardboard to add my veggie/fruit trimmings/composted leaves. I go clockwise around the bed to add food and to remove the vermicompost as needed to use in my containers/other beds. There are so many worms in the bed that is necessary to spread the vermicompost out to let it dry out and get the worms to move back to a moister section. Try to use unchlorinated water to moisten the rest of the bed or some that has sat out for 24hrs so that the chlorine has mostly evaporated. Red worms will eat the bacteria from the decaying foods, and I never have a problem with offensive odors ....actually, the compost in this bed smells really good and the plants seem to really thrive on it. I agree that getting these worms from someone in your area may be better as they will have adapted to your local weather conditions. I live in a desert area that has temps from the 20's to the 110's and they have survived many years outside this way.

It is pretty easy to make earthworm castings in your own home by raising red wigglers. There is lots of good info at the vermicomposting forum. Of course, you will need to buy or find some red wigglers first and wait while they turn your kitchen garbage into to "Black Gold".

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that plants grown with vermicompost (or in the presence of large amounts of worm castings) are not as attractive to sap-sucking insects like whitefly. (It's not insecticidal but just a matter of the plants being less attractive than other plants due to some characteristic the castings give the plant.) Unfortunately there isn't very much scientific evidence to back that up, but maybe in the future; the science of vermicompost is in relative infancy. Consistency is the problem. It seems likely that it's happened in a few cases but figuring out why and how, and then making sure your particular batch of castings/compost will do the same thing is difficult and so any attempt is a crap shoot. If you are willing to believe it, then aphids would also be kept at bay since they are sap-sucking as well. The good news is that like any compost worm compost/castings are good for your plants whether they actively suppress diseases and pests or just enrich the plant, so I say it's worth a try. I will second the suggestion to set up your own bin and make your own. It's pretty easy. There's a great vermicomposting forum here on gardenweb and several scattered throughout the internet that will be happy to give you any info you'd like. For now though, buying some castings and doing an informal experiment might be a fun and educational project, as long as the castings aren't too overpriced... Here is a link that might be useful: Vermicomposting Forum

I generally use 2 parts bone meal to 1 part blood meal. If your tomato plants were huge and green but did not produce many tomatoes, then you probably had too much nitrogen, which encourages leaf growth. The whole formula that I try to use (it comes from Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening) is: 1 part blood meal 2 parts bone meal 3 parts wood ash 4 parts compost (he says composted leaf mold, but I never have enough) --------------------- NPK = 2.6/4.9/2.4 Worm castings are like gold--I would save them for my seedlings if you have a supply of compost available use that instead for the bulk of the compost. If you know anyone who heats with a wood stove, then this is the time to hit them up for their wood ash, before they discard all of it.