Sherry - I suspect most here on the vermicomposting forum are familiar with vermicomposting ... or learning to be :)

castings are fine for house plants, tho' it's best for the worms if you try to keep too many from winding up in the plant pots, where they'll find food scarce

Bill

Oh God Bill. How stupid of me... I was thinking I was posting on the Houseplant forums!!! My second favourite!
Thnaks for pointing this out!! LOL

Sherry

hiya. i'm an urban dweller and a lot of my castings go into house plants too. the only "problem" i have come up with is a few little drain fly type things hatching out of the castings once put in the trees. not the most pleasant, but they are tiny. otherwise the castings work great.

Thanks for your message shesoldier. I really wanted to hear from people like you who actually use the castings in your houseplants.
Are/were you in the military?
Sherry

hiya sherry...
heh, no, i am a shesoldier in the metaphorical sense, fighting the good fight against the BS in the world on a daily basis. :)

as for the plants, aside from the occasional little fly zipping around (and they are a problem in my bin, so who's to say you'd even get them), castings are awesome. :)

I've had an eruption of fungus gnats hatch out of vermicompost when used indoors, but I just use the yellow sticky traps until they are all gone and then there's no more problem.

Thanks Wormgirl,
I had fungas gnats in my houseplants last year for the first time in years. The sticky tags work okay but not always quick enough. If you get some fungas gnats again, water your plants with very hot water. Surprisingly, this doesn't hurt the plants at all (honest!) and killed the gnats immediately.

Sherry

Hi all:
I'm interested in finding out exactly HOW you use the castings in house plants. Do you just place a little bit on top of the dirt in the pot? Or do you mix it with the potting soil when you are repotting? Or what?
How much worm stuff should go in, compared to regular "dirt"?
Betts

Hi Betts,
Good to meet you!
I've top-dressed my plants with castings, then covered with soil. This keeps the castings from drying out. I also have castings and potting soil mixed in a pail. I've read that 20-40% is a good mix of castings to soil.
Sherry

Thanks, Sherry. I'm going to try using worm castings mixed with store-bought potting soil. It kind of bugs me having to buy soil, since I have a yard full of it, but despite having added worm castings to my house plants, I still do not have the spectacular results that I think I ought to! So maybe the soil is an issue.
Do you fertilize regularly or do they do fine without?
Betts

Hi Betts,
I picked up a little tomato plant from our local Full Circles and immediately planted it in potting soil and castings. I had expected it to just take off and go nots. It hasn't. It's grown a bit, but then I look at other people's tomato plants and there's are huge with blossoms.

Same as my houseplants. They look the same as they always do....healthy but no spurt of large growth or anything. I put the potting soil and castings mixture in a few of my plants to see how they would do. I didn't want to kill any off accidentally. These I haven't fertilized. I figured the castings would take the place of fert. Maybe I'm wrong.

Sherry

Here is the recipe I use for my potted plants:
1 Tbsp. Calcium
1 part sand
2 parts perlite
4 parts compost (vermi)
and either 8 parts peat moss or 4 parts peat moss + 4 parts coffee grounds.

My plants grow VERY well in this!

Mix worm casting at around 20% of your bedding materials.Too much worm cast will actually stunt the growth of your plants or even kill them.And do not put worms in your house plants unless you plan on feeding them in the pots.They will leave the pots in search of food and you will likely find them dead under your feet.

Even though this is the wrong forum for such I also do cuttings from summer plants and overwinter inside.

Here are shots from a few-- I have mixed in 25% castings into peat, potting soil and vermiculite and they are doing great. Anymore castings than that would probably be a waste. I also flush these cuttings with liquid seaweed from a powder once a month.

Great cuttings Steve!
I top-dressed my plants a couple of weeks ago......just mixed some castings with soil that I removed from the plants and dressed the top. They're looking good.

I have an orchid that needs re-potted, I've never re-potted an orchid. This is the first time I've tried growing one, and I got it from a friend a year ago. There were just 2 sticks. I coaxed it to flower again, and it did, AND sent up a new stem which flowers, and new leaves. It no sooner has spent flowers, when new buds start forming.

It needs to be repotted, and i'd love to put some poop in that as well.