I was thinking of grabbing about 1 dozen worms for each 5 gallon bucket i have. Would this potentially increase my yields and health of the plant? The major benefits of earthworm activities to soil fertility can be summarized as: Biological. In many soils, earthworms play a major role in converting large pieces of organic matter (e.g. dead leaves) into rich humus, and thus improving soil fertility. This is achieved by the worm's actions of pulling down below any organic matter deposited on the dried dirt, such as leaf fall or manure, either for food or when it needs to plug its burrow. Once in the burrow, the worm will shred the leaf and partially digest it, then mingle it with the earth by saturating it with intestinal secretions. Worm casts (see below) can contain 40% more humus than the top 9" of soil in which the worm is living. Chemical. As well as dead organic matter, the earthworm also ingests any other soil particles that are small enough-including stones up to 1/20 of an inch (1.25mm) across-into its gizzard wherein minute fragments of grit grind everything into a fine paste which is then digested in the stomach. When the worm excretes this in the form of casts which are deposited on the surface or deeper in the soil, minerals and plant nutrients are made available in an accessible form. Investigations in the US show that fresh earthworm casts are 5 times richer in available nitrogen, 7 times richer in available phosphates and 11 times richer in available potash than the surrounding upper 6 inches (150 mm) of soil. In conditions where there is plenty of available humus, the weight of casts produced may be greater than 4.5 kg (10 lb) per worm per year, in itself an indicator of why it pays the gardener or farmer to keep worm populations high. Physical. By its burrowing actions, the earthworm is of great value in keeping the soil structure open, creating a multitude of channels which allow the processes of both aeration and drainage to occur. Permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison points out that by sliding in their tunnels, earthworms "act as an innumerable army of pistons pumping air in and out of the soils on a 24 hour cycle (more rapidly at night)" [2]. Thus the earthworm not only creates passages for air and water to traverse, but is itself a vital component in the living biosystem that is healthy soil. Earthworms continue to move through the soil due to the excretion of mucus into the soil that acts as a lubricant for easier movement of the worm.
try it! Let us know how it goes Maybe try it on 1 plant and compare notes from another with out worms.
The best use of worms is through Vermicomposting. While adding worms to your grow containers will certainly not hurt anything, the end result will be minimal, compared to actually making your own wormcasts. When your soil is amended with your fresh wormcasts, and further inoculated with a home brewed wormcast tea, you will notice increased growth and overall better plant health. There is a lot of info on worm teas available by using the Search button. If you do put worms in your pots, use red wigglers/redworms (Eisenia foetida), they are the best worms for creating rich castings. It wouldn't hurt to throw 2-3 cups of worm castings in your soil as well. Red wigglers can eat their weight in organic material daily, while leaving 75% of their weight in castings. So......make sure there is plenty of organic material in your soil for them to eat. Good luck with your project........
Don't use earthworms, they will just die or attempt to escape. They live a lot deeper in the soil than a pot can provide for. As the previous poster suggested, red wrigglers would be the worm to use if you want to try this, as their natural habitat is much closer to the surface. They are also the worms used for vermicomposting, for the same reason.
I've got quite the red wiggler farm growing for worm castings. I haven't figured out how to harvest the castings without getting the worms too. But then again I haven't tried to hard either. I think about it a lot, tho. So, if some of the baby worms go into my pots with the worm castings it will be okay?
ya man just buy worm castings they work great keep a couple worms in there too but not too many they are like natural aerators your girls roots will love it
Well i threw about 5 worms in each bucket of mine, seems to be working well because i dont see the worms anywhere in my house, and havnt woken up to a worm crawling up my leg... ehhh. anyways it seems to work because my plants arent dead. If you have to opportunity to, mix red wigglers and earthworms, both do the same thing yet, live in different depths of the soil and are non predatorial. much luck and ill be dropping by for updates. hey worst comes to worst they die in the soil and decompose... aka the NITROGEN cycle.
