Understanding Worm Castings and Compost Tea

We all enjoy a good cup of tea--even our garden. Good compost, worm castings or vermicompost added to the soil carry to the root zone a rich compliment of soluble plant nutrients and growth enhancing compounds, a diverse and populous consortium of microbial life and a substrate of organic matter harboring a storehouse of nutrients that are not lost to rain and irrigation. The plant is delivered an ongoing, reliable food source when bacteria and microscopic fungi feed on the organic matter, releasing some of the nutrients to the soil and storing others for their own energy and reproduction. When nematodes and protozoa in turn feed upon them the nutrients stored in the bacterial and fungal bodies are released to the soil in a plant available form. According to Dr. Elaine Ingham, when soil, compost or castings support protozoa numbers on the order of 20,000 per gram of solid matter, 400 pounds of nitrogen per acre are released through their predation of bacteria. When we feed organic matter to the soil, the soil life feeds nutrients to the plant. Click here to return to our main Worm Guys Site. http://www.wormguys.com/ Thanks.