amending jiffy mix for seedlings indoors?

Hey guys, as some of you read I had a serious problem occur when I top-dressed my 12 day old starters growing in jiffy mix with chicken manure. Happy story though, they are revived and are resuming normal growth. I may have lost some yield and a week in the end, but at least I didn't have to start more seeds. On to the topic, I read the sticky written by Dank-Oh-zee where he stated he amends his Jiffy Mix with worm castings and vermiculite at a 5-3-3 ratio and this works well for him. I intend to keep on using jiffy mix straight, as it has always performed well for me indoors and out for seeding and cloning. However, after years of 100% outdoor growing I seem to have lost my touch at the initial feeding of indoor starters. I'm just looking to pick a brain or 2, and if anybody wants to point direction to other threads pertaining to this topic then awesome, or if someone wants to give their own ideas on the subject then awesome too!!.

 

Hey Chunk, I can get as fresh and alive EWC as possible. I live in Fl, and there are numerous worm farms around here. Some of them are U-Dig bait worm farms and others are wholesale ops. Most of them use a main base of crushed peanut hulls and feed the local seed meals.(soybean and cotton). It's kind of cool going to the Mom and Pop places where their shade cloth is Castor bean plants and the sides of the beds are made of old barn tin and cypress poles!! Question is, if I got that thick, black earth from under the top layer of peanut shell mulching, would I be getting a safe product to use as is? I've never bought EWC, but I know when my Dad used to raise worms that what we called the "wormdirt" had to be used sparingly because it drained poorly.

 

The cotton,peanuts,and soy are all GMO. I know that doesn't jive with a lot of people, but someone forgot to tell the worms. As far as I know( btw, I'm surrounded by thousands of acres of farmland) they are using spinosad on cotton now. I believe BT has been spliced into the genetics of the cotton, plus it's predominantly the roundup ready stuff. There are few to none who grow traditional corn, cotton,peanuts, or soy around here. Personally I f%ing hate Monsanto in all of their wickedness and greed, but it has gotten to a point around here where a farmer can't afford not to use their shit. Palmer's Amaranth, pigweed,bindweed, etc. have naturally mutated over the last 30 years to withstand glyphosate and they are still having problems controling it with roundup.

Back on topic, and on a brighter note, some of the U-dig places use leaf litter, watermelon rind, and whatever else they can get from farmers that was messed up and couldn't go to market. That's the way my Dad used to raise them and it worked out pretty good, although we never had the volume per cu.ft or the size of wigglers and earthworms like the bigtime operations do. One of these days I'm goingto get off my lazy rear and build myself a small bed. I'm not one that likes to fork over a lot of money, so I'll have to wait for an opportunity on some free tin.

 

That sounds like a mix I would trust.