With winter quickly approaching, I'm starting to look ahead at how I'll take care of the lawn next year. I want to reduce my use of synthetics. After watching the kbg in my lawn grow faster in areas surrounded by worm castings, I was wondering if members on here harvest their own worm castings for use on their lawn. Most info I've seen online use smaller bins, I'd imagine a rather large (55gal or so) bin would be needed for my lawn. My goal is to have a good amount of vermicompost to spread over the lawn in spring. I'd also like to make use of all the excess food waste and used coffee grinds I usually throw out.

Hi Gregg,

I vermicompost with red worms. I use the castings on my flower beds and vegetable garden. Don't have room to produce enough for the lawn. I used a 55gal plastic bin... I suggest purchasing a worm composter instead; harvesting the castings are a pain in the rear.

Maybe someone here can recommend a method we both can use to make harvesting easy.

Gregg-
I don't know how large a lawn you are maintaining, but you'll need a lot of scraps, a lot of space, a lot of worms and a fair bit of time if you plan to use castings in any reasonable amount as a broadcast application. If you have some quality castings from a "normal" size worm bed, you may consider brewing an aerated compost tea from it. When done properly, it can provide some of the same benefits without needing as much stock material.

ps - Your coffee grounds can be flung out on the lawn as-is. There's no reason to compost them first.

In Minnesota, Mark Campbell, a resident of Edina, “tosses his kitchen waste in his vermiculture bin in the basement and uses the “tea” and castings to fertilizer his garden.” He also “ripped up most of the grass in his yard because he considers grass a waste of precious resources”. You can view a video of Mark here, though it focuses on fruit trees and apple crisp.
In Massachusetts, residents of cities with ‘pay as you throw’ garbage collection use vermicompost to save money and process their food scraps.
The Wall Street Journal reviews various composting options, including the Worm Factory, a vermicomposting bin.
In Maine, Redworms for a Green Earth exhibited at the Green Home and Living Show. Redworms were also featured at the Christ Episcopal Church‘s ‘Blessing of the Animals’ in Ponte Vedra, Florida. In California, a real estate blogger covers why vermicomposting is important for green real estate.

Worm composting does not reach the high temperatures that normal composting does. That heat is what kills plant diseases. While redworms have shown effectiveness in dealign with human pathogens, and vermicompost helped supress several plant diseases [PDF], I was unable to find anything directly attacking the problem you have.

I started a website/forum regarding vermicomposting if anyone's interested.http://wormforums.com/
The site's still in its infancy so I still got some tweaking to do.

I've been down this road....ended up giving my worm bin away as I couldn't get enough castings fast enough. I got online and found a supplier of castings in bulk that had a huge operation. I ended up buying a pick up truck load for about $150.00 to incorporate into a 10,000 Ft2 project. The results were nothing less than great. The best uniformity of seedlings I've had. I got another few bags for a few bucks just to make tea with as it would have taken me too long and too much trouble to get what I needed. Check out the wormpower website for the videos. Some people feel compost is compost however I believe in vermicompost!

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I've been having-toying with the idea of scaling up my worm bins - way up - for about a year or more. So far my business plan has all the components except for the part about making a profit.
So far I usually reserve the castings I get for compost tea or container amendment.

Got a quick question not on vermicompost but on worm castings. My back yard has a huge nightcrawler population. You can't take 2 steps without walking on the piles of castings. I'm just wondering if it best to just leave it alone realizing that eventually it works into the soil or would it hurt to go through with a power rake every couple years to level it out? When I seeded last summer I had it smooth as a babies bottom but it went right back to ankle twisting size mounds (not quite but almost) in a matter of weeks.
BTW KBG germination was awesome.

Thanks

appalachianturf wrote:I've been down this road....ended up giving my worm bin away as I couldn't get enough castings fast enough.

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Definitely agree with you. Takes a lot of worms to make enough castings for a lawn. I started my bins in November, so far I have about 10lbs of castings. My lawn isn't that big so I think I'll have enough castings to spread by late spring. I'm gonna mix it with some traditional compost since it's the microbial activity in the vermicompost thats most beneficial. It doesn't take much castings to make worm tea, so I'll be applying that more often.
Jackpine, I don't think most on this forum would recommend a power rake for anything, stirs up the soil too much and you'll free up ancient weeds like mad. Makes a mess of the lawn as well. The problem with earthworm castings from the worms underground is that it also contains soil which the worms pushed up from beneath. The worm mucus makes the soil somewhat hard and the mounds seem to stick around forever. The micro herd consume castings, but not the dirt, so your left with an unsightly mound. I had a ton in my reno last fall and it drove me mad. Record rain took care of it though, but if it bothers you that much you can lightly rake if down. I first complained about all the worm activity in my lawn, but eventually came to realize that the grass closest to the worm castings were growing faster, had better color, and appeared more lush.
Cactus, I see a ton of people selling worms and castings on ebay. Don't know if they're turning up a real profit though. You'd probably need a serious operation like worm power with acres of bins and probably millions of worms. There's also a post on my forum about scammers selling worms. Heck, I know I was scammed when I first got my worms. I bought 2lbs, supposed to be about 2000 worms. Now I didn't count them all, but I'm positive that wasn't no 2000 worms, didn't even seem a quarter that.

Jackpine wrote:Got a quick question not on vermicompost but on worm castings. My back yard has a huge nightcrawler population. You can't take 2 steps without walking on the piles of castings. I'm just wondering if it best to just leave it alone realizing that eventually it works into the soil or would it hurt to go through with a power rake every couple years to level it out? When I seeded last summer I had it smooth as a babies bottom but it went right back to ankle twisting size mounds (not quite but almost) in a matter of weeks.
BTW KBG germination was awesome.

Thanks

Leave 'em. They fall apart pretty well; the piles really only last through a few rains. You just get more constantly.

I refer to them as Soil Bumps and step on them constantly around here. I just smile and realize how good they are for the soil...and drop more organics to feed them.

Gregg, Okay I'll stand away from the power rake! LOL

Morph what you said makes sense in that they disintegrate with the rain but keep being resupplied. At times it seems like the industrious lil' buggers are ahead of the rainfall! Hey I'm not complaining.

Yep, they do get ahead of the weathering at times. This winter, the worms never really went to sleep all that much, so there are plenty of Soil Bumps out there. In some ways this is a very good thing--with three dogs, it means the dog leavings don't stay on the lawn more than a day or three.

During a reasonably dry period in spring it can be an absolute minefield out there between the worm castings and the dogs.