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Cologne / Germany

For all of us wondering about the fertilizing effect of organic material, compost etc. I found this site:

http://coffeehouse.fulori.com/gardening.html

Another site tells something about the worth of worm castings (I added it to my soil this season):

"Earthworm castings are high in: Soluble nitrogen, potash, potassium, calcium, magnesium, many other trace elements & over 150 micro-nutrients.
Worm castings allow plants to quickly and easily absorb all essential nutrients and trace elements. This is possible because the earthworm grinds and uniformly mixes the nutrients and trace elements into simple forms. Plants need only minimal effort to absorb these nutrients. This is not the case with most other natural and/or chemical fertilizers. Even though chemical fertilizers have many nutrients listed, and/or higher laboratory analysis percentages, the ability of plants to optimally use these nutrients is limited. Mainly since the nutrients are not broken down in a manner that plants can readily use."

The whole story is here:

http://www.vermi-cast.com/whyuse.htm

I know there is a controverse discussion among growers sometimes about chemical and/or organic fertilizers. For myself I´ll try to put a focus on what I´ve read on these sites during the season.

5/15/2002 8:12:57 AM

Long Island,New York

But your reading it from the people who make/sell the product....of course its gonna sound good.............G

5/15/2002 2:58:49 PM

Cologne / Germany

There are so many other sites about that stuff you could end up with a big collection of links - from universities to sellers. I was just looking for some good explanations on that topic.

5/16/2002 4:52:22 AM

porterville, calif.

Im in a Master Gardening program. We had a man who came to do one of our classes. He was into Vermiculture in a big way. He brought along samples of worm castings with him. He also had some vegtables planted in straight worm castings, and some planted in some real good potting soil. The Vegatbles in the worm castings were twice the size of the ones in the potting soil. Also had a deeper green and were twice as strong stems and leaves. There was no burn at all. It convince me to try worm castings. He also used the liquid from the castings as a tea for the plants

5/18/2002 3:49:33 AM