Earthworms in indoor soil?

[iDab]

Hi peeps, new here!

I'm looking into growing organic indoors, which I've never done before, only outdoors so far..

So I know earthworms are great for the garden. Great for plants. Mixing EWC in with soil is really good for it and all that..

Outdoors plants have worms living in the soil with no probs. So can I have a good community of worms in indoor grows? Will there be any problems I'm not thinking about? Or is it all good?

Any advice welcome!

Thanks peeps! :)

 

[LittleDabbie]

What would you feed them? Outside they feed on dead and decaying matter.. indoors you would have to supplement that feeding with something else.

Novel idea but in the long run i think you'd just either end up killing the worms with nutes , drowning them from too much water or you'll end up attracting bugs from supplementing there food source.

 

[organicpanic]

I don't have not done this myself. But I am thinking about it. There's several growers I follow on IG that have worm populations as well as insects such as predeter mites happily dwelling in their indoor pots. They mulch the soil with vegetation leaves stems etc. as that breaks down the worms feed on it. Some people are on like their tenth cycle in the same pot same soil. It looks like it's working very we'll. It can be done.

 

[GoldiNugs]

Organic soil is full of organic matter, right? Which is what worms feed on. That would be at least some food for them. LD is right though, you would probably need to feed them more than that, which isn't what you want to do indoors.

 

[iDab]

Cool yeh, well I notice my outdoor plants often have worms in the soil, without me either putting them there or feeding them.

I think they must come out of the ground and enter through the drainage holes..

Anyway they see to live in those pots quite happily and I always see that as a benefit to my plants.

So I was thinking, if outdoors, then why not indoors?

 

[AfricanHaze]

I don't see any problems with it. You could only host a small population without additional feeding, but with a compost based mix, there should be plenty for them to munch on.

 

[VERMONTSKUNKS]

im doin this very exact thing and found a ratio I can handle1 works VERY VERY VERY WELL!

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

I was interested in this as well until I read that earth worms can live up to 10 years! I'd feel bad capturing them and shortening their life for my own personal benefit.

 

[LittleDabbie]

I was interested in this as well until I read that earth worms can live up to 10 years! I'd feel bad capturing them and shortening their life for my own personal benefit.

Don't feel bad if your pile gets too big start a new bin as a vermicomposting bin :D They eat your garbage so the landfill's dont have too ;)

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

Thats a different kind of worm that you use to compost.

 

[LittleDabbie]

Thats a different kind of worm that you use to compost.

And what kinda of worm are you referring to? Cause earth worm is a broad term for any worm found in the earth...?

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

Earthworms Yeah... The ones you find in soil. Too many dabs this morning? Hehe.

I'm not into it, but pretty sure you use red worms for composting...

 

[LittleDabbie]

Earthworms Yeah... The ones you find in soil. Too many dabs this morning? Hehe.

I'm not into it, but pretty sure you use red worms for composting...

IF your talking about night crawlers and such they won't survive the temps of a grow room ( Ive tried them in just a composting bin at room temp and killed 90% of them )

Composting worms aka Red Wigglers would work perfectly they can handle a much broader range of temps.

Other then that theres about 160 specices give or take of earthworms but most prefer cold temps 40's 50's sometimes 60's

Red wigglers can handle excess of 80 - 90F and live longer and eat alot more.

 

[VERMONTSKUNKS]

fed my red wigglers hair/shredded cardboard that's right folks hair from the barbershop! I have yet to kill any worms that im aware of!

 

[VERMONTSKUNKS]

I have a secret for keeping crawlers alive.............its pretty k.i.s.s too!

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

You guys are putting composting worms into your containers? What, are you using kitchen scraps for soil amendments?

 

[LittleDabbie]

I Vermicompost but i don't grow plants in those containers i just raise worms, as far as food goes pretty much anything cept a handful of things like onions, garlic, salty foods, meat, dairy...

Worm castings = gold :D

 

[Dunge]

When I up-pot to flower size I spread a scoop of castings from my stacking worm bin.
My castings have live worms in there as I don't have the technology to get them out.
The plants like it, and the worms do very well.
I find live escapees under my pots and yesterday saw the most lively worm I have ever rescued.
It does delay me as I am compelled to put them back in the bin.
I feed microbial tea into super soil, so they probably feed on that.
I also found nematodes in there, presumably a contamination from a pack I bought years ago as a garden beneficial.
Wish I knew how to preferentially boost nematode populations, but my worm bin is clean of mites and flies (common worm bin pests).
The trick is to feed to lower levels, never leaving raw scraps on top.

 

[VERMONTSKUNKS]

the only reason I ever tried this was the wifes work couldn't sell there crawlers this past season so I put 4-5 into each smartpot (10 gallon at least) and make sure they are in an area of the house or prop where they get,shade and cool temps. I try as hard as I can to source as much n-p-k from those worms as possible/and the vermic like dabble said. I need to step up my game when it comes to sourceing my amendments from nature.

 

[LittleDabbie]

Mites and such are actually beneficial to a worm bin and are fairly common if you find there a nuisance you can discourage them by burying the food scraps a little and covering them up, the worms will have 0 issues finding the food trust me lol

When i get antsy / bored i like to poke around and see all them eating up the food, checking for new babies/eggs ect ect. Its a really fun and rewarding hobby! :D