Castings
Castings are the product of worm composting. Also known as vermicast, vermicompost, worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, it is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by species of earthworm. The worms, usually red wigglers and other composting worms, create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable, or food waste, and bedding materials. Containing water-soluble nutrients, castings are a nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner with around 10 times more nutrients than outdoor compost.
Castings do a lot more than chemical fertilizer as the microscopic organisms in the compost maintain the ground soil in good health condition. The worm compost is rich in excellent nutrition for your garden and your plants (microbes, humus and enzymes). The compost texture is also helpful for soil regenerations because it can hold up to 3 times its weight in water. Because of the coding effect, which happens during the digestion by the worms, the vermicompost will slowly release its nutrients once mixed in the soil.
Regeneration of soil:
Castings can be used for ground soil regeneration. Ground soil can be improved with natural fertilizer and organic matter. Your production of castings will increase the growth of your plants in your garden and make your indoor plants look healthier.
When we look at the bigger picture, the best news of all is the fact that the vermicast or castings are regenerating our topsoil. We are now creating instead of eroding the topsoil of our planet. Did you know that according to different sources, the topsoil of our planet is being eroded 10-40 times faster than it is being replenished? In 2010, we lost 87 million tonnes of topsoil. The lack of topsoil is the reason why nothing grows in deserts.
Instead of throwing valuable resources in our landfills, we can simply compost with worms to recreate the few inches of topsoil that are essential to our lives on this planet.
Have a look at these tests on castings with different seeds. The results are interesting.
This is exactly what you can do at home… on a smaller scale!
Compost tea
Making compost tea is a great way to extend the quantity of compost or castings, because you just need a small quantity of compost. Anybody that has used compost tea will tell you how well it works. You can use it on all types of plants, as a spray or just as a liquid that you would use to water your plants.
During the process of making compost tea, it is crucial to use oxygen for all the microbes to survive (as seen on the previous video). Therefore, it is impossible to bottle it. You must use it immediately after making it, in the anaerobic stage, before it loses all of its oxygen and starts to smell.
Here is an easy way to make vermicompost tea.
