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Growing Vegetables with Worm Castings

Posted on by Stephanie Matthews

Worm Poo, do your plants love it?

With my Master Gardener™ Apprentice Project I hoped to show whether or not feeding plants using worm castings (also called vermicompost) and worm casting tea resulted in healthier, more productive plants.

I started with two beds, each receiving the same amount of sunlight and having the same growing conditions, as well as starting with the same soil type and nutrient density in each bed. I planted the same plants in the same location in each bed: 1 Tomato, 1 Zucchini, 5 Green Beans, 1 Pepper, 2 Cilantro.

I already had an “under the counter worm bin” that was home to red wigglers as well as an old cooler that I used as another worm bin, so I had access to plenty of worm castings to use. I feed them garden scraps as needed and topped them with dried plant material and a layer of cardboard.

When I planted the Worm Bed I included a handful of worm castings into each planting hole, I also scuffed worm castings into the top of the soil around each plant; the control bed was planted directly into the existing soil with no added fertilizers.

I added more worm casting to the worm bed 3 times during the growing season, about once a month I would scuff a handful of worm castings into the soil around each plant. I also watered it with worm casting tea at least once a month. Both beds received the same amount of water throughout the season.

The final produce count for each bed:

Worm bed: 44 Green Beans, 6 Zucchini, 1 bunch of Cilantro, 3 Tomatoes, 1 Pepper,
Control Bed: 31 Green Beans, 3 Zucchini, 1 Tomato,

The worm bed produced more on each plant, the plants grew
faster as well, though this slowed down around the middle to the end of season.

I never noticed any pests on any of the plants so I can’t say if the worm bed was more pest resistant or not but in the last few weeks the tomato in the worm bed has begun to look sickly; yellowing and dying leaves, and now mold has started to grow on it’s main stem. This could be due to over-watering but with so many people in and out of the garden it’s hard to tell.

Red Wiggler Worm Eisenia andrei

Red Wiggler—Eisenia andrei

Overall, I think that the worm bed produced healthier, faster growing plants; they produced more and started producing sooner than the control bed. Worms are easy to feed and care for and make a safe and easy to use nutrient boost for your plants! They don’t require much attention other than occasional feedings, and they like to eat most garden and kitchen scraps.

To set up your own worm bin:

  • Find a container, two nested plastic bins work well, the top will have drainage holes and will house the worms and their bedding and the bottom will collect the leachate (a dark liquid that is rich in beneficial microbes and nutrients – mix with water and feed to your plants)
  • Fill the top bin with 4 to 6 inches of damp bedding, shredded paper or newspaper (nothing glossy), cardboard, coconut coir, leaves, or dried grass or plant material. Soak or dampen the bedding before adding to the bin.
  • Worms don’t have teeth so they need grit to help grind the food, add a handful of garden soil or ground egg shells to the bin (I like to mix a shovelful of native soil with the bedding).
  • Add your worms! Place them on top of the bedding and they will burrow down to escape the light.
  • Red wigglers are most active in a temperature range of 55-77°, they will eat less if temperatures are hotter or cooler than this. Place in a garage or somewhere protected during extreme cold or heat.
  • Maintain moisture level, if too wet add more bedding, if too dry add water but don’t water too often to avoid anaerobic conditions.
  • Feed your worms fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, and crushed eggshells. For faster decomposition you can chop scraps into smaller pieces if you want.
  • Do not add meat, dairy products, oily foods, pet waste, acidic items such as citrus, or onion or garlic (onion and garlic skin is fine to add).
  • For a new bin feed slowly at first, adding food about once a week and only adding what the worms can eat within that week.
  • Bury the food in a new location in the bin each week (if possible), bury under the top layer of bedding, covering food to help prevent fruit flies and odors.
Your vermicompost will be ready to harvest in three to six months, it will look like rich, dark soil.You can add another bin directly on top of current bedding material (will require drainage holes big enough for the worms to pass through). Add bedding and start feeding in the new bin. After a few weeks the worms will have left the old bin and will be feeding in the new bin.
Dump the bin onto a tarp under a bright light, the worms will burrow down to escape the light. You can scrape off the top layer of castings and repeat as the worms burrow deeper.

Images Courtesy of Oregon State University Extension Service.
You can find out more about worm casting composting here:
https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/em-9034-composting-worms

Tips for Preventing a Slug Takeover (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Julie Ericksen

You can also listen to Julie and Ross McCann discuss slugs/snails and their control on KYAQ radio. Here's the recording of their interview:

If you've spent any time gardening in the Pacific Northwest, you are probably very familiar with slugs and the damage they cause to plants. These hungry little mollusks love our damp, temperate environment. Whenever we have wet weather, we're likely to find them out and munching away on our most delicate plants, leaving holes in leaves and the telltale slime trail behind them.

As gardeners, we all have to decide how much damage we are willing to tolerate from pests. Slugs eating a few holes in plants may be OK, but if they start to eat entire plants and all of your seedlings, that's a problem. Our native slugs, such as banana slugs, are important parts of the ecosystem, digesting decaying plant matter and putting nutrients back into the soil. They are rarely a problem in gardens. It's the invasive varieties like gray field slugs, brown slugs, and leopard slugs that are very damaging to home gardens and commercial crops.

Luckily, there are some research-backed methods you can use to minimize slug damage. In this article, we briefly cover slug anatomy and habitat, provide tips on how to make your garden less slug friendly, and give details on how to use a simple bread dough slurry to attract and kill them. Slugs and snails are closely related and so the recommendations for slugs apply to snails as well.

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It helps to understand some basics about the slugs lifestyle. Slugs are gastropods, gastro meaning stomach and pod meaning foot. Basically, they are walking stomachs and yes, they are coming for your hostas and juicy new lettuce sprouts. They have two sets of tentacles, one to sense light and one for taste and smell. They have a radula, small file-like teeth used to grasp and chew, and make holes in plant leaves as they eat. Perhaps their most famous characteristic is the protective slime coating that helps keep them from drying out. You can often identify slug damage by finding slime trails on the ground and on plants. The slime coating also gives clues about their preferred habitat. They need moist environments and are active mostly at night or when it is cloudy. You'll generally find more of them in the spring and fall.

Another critical point to know is that they are extremely prolific. They are hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female reproductive organs. Every animal can lay eggs, and they lay up to forty eggs at a time. Even though slugs only live for 6-18 months, they can lay over 500 eggs in that time. That's a lot of slugs! It also explains why it is so important to start managing their numbers as soon as you start noticing signs of slugs, like those slug trails, and damage on your plants. They (and their eggs) overwinter in the soil and can quickly decimate plants when they emerge in the spring.

There are things you can do to make your garden less friendly to slugs. You can minimize the damp areas of your garden by limbing up trees and shrubs to get more light underneath them, keeping leaf litter to a minimum, and using mulch. You can also encourage their predators. Garden snakes, salamanders, frogs, and some beetles will eat slugs, as will birds, including chickens and ducks. Even so, unless your garden is very dry all year, you'll likely have at least some slugs.

One relatively easy and cheap way to kill slugs is to use a bread dough slurry. The slurry is a similar idea to using beer traps but lets you skip the step of hauling home large quantities of cheap beer and getting odd looks from your neighbors. The advantage of using the bread dough slurry is that it uses commonly found, inexpensive ingredients. The disadvantage is that you do have to monitor it and make sure you have it in a place where you are catching slugs. It can smell, especially when it gets warm. It isn't toxic to other animals but be sure to keep it away from dogs.

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An angled Container makes easy access to "slug beach."

To make the bread dough slurry, mix 1 cup of flour, 1 package of yeast, and 2-3 cups to warm water. You can easily double the recipe. Collect some clean plastic or glass containers--large yogurt containers work well--and pour in a couple inches of slurry. For each container, dig a hole and place the container deep enough that the rim is at soil level. You can also dig a smaller hole and put the container in at an angle, making more of a beach for the slugs to crawl in. As noted, slugs do have a sense of smell and are attracted to the slurry. They'll fall in and drown. Replace the slurry every few days, or at least remove the dead slugs and add more water if it has dried up.

If you have a serious slug problem or a particular plant you are trying to protect, there are a couple extra steps you can take. Put the warm slurry down in the evening or early morning and come back an hour later to check it. Chances are there are many slugs heading for that party. Wearing gloves (slug slime is really hard to wash off your hands), pick off all the slugs. Be sure to check around the damaged plants as well, and you may need to do this for several nights in a row. Some will get caught in the slurry, but this helps you catch any that try to escape.

There are many ways to get dispose of the live slugs, but one easy way to kill them quickly is to fill a tall jar, like a peanut container, with water and a squeeze of dish soap. Put the slugs right into the jar and they'll die quickly.

So, keep your eye out for slugs and start treating them as soon as you see signs of them. By providing fewer places for them to live, encouraging predators, putting yeast slurry in strategic spots, and hunting them down, you can help your garden be less of a slug buffet.

You can also listen to Julie Eriksen talk about slug and snail management on a radio segment from KYAQ 97.1 FM.

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References:

Container Gardening (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Larry King

In this edition of the Lincoln County Gardner, Ross McCann talks with Master Gardener Mary Jane Bonelitz about gardening in pots, planters and other containers. She describes how to choose your container, soil composition and more.

Carnivorous container bog in South Beach Demonstration Garden. Photo by Steve Vogel. Featured image of succulent planter by Larry King.

Gardens with Year-Round Interest (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Larry King

In this edition of the Lincoln County Gardner, Ross McCann talks with Master Gardener Daniel Hutchison about creating gardens with year-round interest. Selecting plants for bloom time, fragrance, foliage color and more can keep your garden captivating all year long.

Camellia japonica 'Bella Rosa.' Photo by Larry King. Featured image of garden plants with varying bloom times by Larry King.

Keyhole Gardens (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Larry King

In this edition of the Lincoln County Gardner, Ross McCann talks with Master Gardener Mary Jane Bonelitz about the history, creation and features of a keyhole garden.

Mary Jane Bonelitz designed and the Lincoln County Master Gardeners built this cottage stone Keyhole Garden in the Demonstration Garden in Lincoln City. Featured image of wooden keyhole garden courtesy of Sage at https://sagesacre.com.

Growing Garlic (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Larry King

In this edition of the Lincoln County Gardner, Ross McCann talks with Master Gardener Joan Crall about growing garlic on the Oregon coast.

Raised garlic bed in South Beach Demonstration Garden. Photo by Steve Vogel. Featured image of garlic bulbs by jacqueline macou from Pixabay.

Gardening In Raised Beds (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Larry King

In this edition of the Lincoln County Gardner, Ross McCann talks with Master Gardener Larry King about gardening using raised beds. Raised beds can help increase soil temperature for better plant growth as well as a variety of other benefits.

Raised bed in Demonstration Garden, Waldport. Photo by Larry King. Featured image by Steve Vogel showing tall raised bed for vegetable production in South Beach Demonstration Garden.

Gardening With Cloches (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Larry King

In this edition of the Lincoln County Gardner, Ross McCann talks with Master Gardener Cathi Block about using cloches. You'll learn that the extra protection given through cloche usage will extend your growing season, protect your plants from being eaten and even allows planting winter crops.

View inside a cloche at the South Beach Demonstration Garden by Steve Vogel. Featured Image of cloches at the Lincoln City Demonstration Garden by Larry King.

Pollinator Gardening (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Larry King

In this edition of the Lincoln County Gardner, Ross McCann talks with the South Beach Demonstration Garden co-coordinator Joan Crall about all that is entailed when designing gardens that attract and support pollinators. They discuss the qualities that make a garden a pollinator garden, how to convert your garden into a more pollinator friendly space, and much more.

A sign in the South Beach Demonstration Garden upon which a California tortoiseshell butterfly is sitting. Photo by Ross McCann. Featured honeybee image by Ted Erski from Pixabay.

Invasive Species (KYAQ Audio)

Posted on by Larry King

In this edition of the Lincoln County Gardner, Ross McCann and Master Gardener Larry King chat about invasive plants, including why they cause problems, what specific species are prominent in Lincoln County, and what you can do about it. A list of the invasive species of Oregon can be found here:
https://www.oregon.gov/oda/weeds/oregon-noxious-weeds/Pages/default.aspx

Herb Robert (also called Stinky Bob), Geranium robertianum, is a common invasive in Lincoln County. Photo courtesy of OSU Extension Service.

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