g'day lemonpeels,

use your gardens as worm farms then the castings and worm wee will be exactly where you want them.

we promote worm activity by feeding our gardens our kitchen scraps.

see our site for pics etc.,.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

I'm sure it will work great, but it sounds pretty expensive. Depending on the size of your lawn, you may need a lot of castings and you may be brewing a lot of tea. I think it would be a whole lot more cost effective and just as successful to spread cornmeal or soybean meal as fertilizer every few months.

-Diggity

You can buy a product called 'Worm Poop' at many stores now. I bought it at Home Depot once. It comes in a concentrated liquid form in recycled plastic bottles. It has an attachment that allows you to hook it up to a hose so you can spray and appropriately dilute it at the same time. If you don't want to use it that way I guess you could open the bottles and do whatever you want with it. I am attaching a link for the company that makes it.

Here is a link that might be useful: TerraCycle Inc.

Here is another link for worm products but I second the motion that fertilizing with some sort of meal will likely be more cost effective. If you feel it is necessary to get the microbes off to a good start you might try spreading worm castings but make sure the supplier doesn't do something to sterilize it before sale as that kinda defeats the purpose.

As to if all worm castings are equal? Well probably not. The nutrients in the worm castings and liquids are going to vary depending on the food the worms eat. Some people add special grit that has lots of micro and trace nutrients while others probably just bed and feed the worms whatever is cheapest and will produce the most volume of castings.

The real benefit in fresh worm castings is that they are alive with lots of wonderful microbes. Perhaps you could start a worm bin of your own this fall and have a supply of your own fresh castings for use in tea making come spring. Check out the Vermicomposting forum right here on Gardenweb.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Vital Earth

Thanks everyone..I do intend on using Soybean meal, alfalfa meal, and Corn Gluten meal, but wanted to also apply the worm casting tea..We just built a new house and new sod was installed, and I kind of want to really baby it the first year...what do you guys think..overkill..and thanks for the TerraCycle Inc..site..there products are available in my area..so I'll give them a look

gardens alive!

I used the TerraCycle on some tiny seedlings last year and it seemed to work well. I don't remember the NPK but it is plenty gentle for seedlings, and it is certainly easier than making one's own tea from castings. Nice packaging, too. I found it at my local Home Depot.

I have seen bagged worm castings at a Worm's Way store, if you have one of those nearby. I've never bought them but their products tend to be pretty pricey.

Postage and handling on any such products is outrageous, though, so I'd tend to go with what I could get locally.

Karen

Concentrate on adding organic matter to your soil rather than products that are supposed to feed the Soil Food Web that is probably non existant now. Organic matter is what earthworms, that produce those castings, need to live in your soil, and adding worm castings to soils with no worms does little because the worms are an indication of the soil life needed to process the worm castings into nutrients that plants can use. Few, or no, earthworms also indicate a lack of other soil bacteria that would digest that material.

Isn't worm poop organic matter? One with a low NPK and micronutrients?

I see no mention in lemonpeels' post where reference to poor soil or lack of organic matter is mentioned. I got the impression of a desire to provide a nice gentle organic insurance to a large investment in new sod.

This sounds perfectly fine to me. I'd probably want to treat it with insurance, too.

Karen

Were I to have questions about worm castings I think I would also ask, or at least lurk briefly around, the vermicomposting forum

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardenweb's vermicomposting forum

The microbes are already in the soil. If it makes you feel better, buy a cheap bag of compost, and make tea from that. If you feel the worm castings are better, and you want to spend the money, well it is your money.

Chicago and surrounding areas MUST have some farmers' markets, check there. That's where I found bottled worm tea, to be diluted before use.

And here's an article from the Chicago Tribune about worm tea: http://www.terracycle.net/media/07-03-18_chicago_tribune/07-03-18_chicago_tribune.htm

Sue

People looking for some place to purchase worm castings generally know they have poor soil and they understand that worm castings are one indication of good soil, or can help make poor soil better, but seldom do they realize the expense of adding worm castings or the ease of getting enough of their own, inexpensively by growing their own worms in their soil.