193 A Warning About Bagged Worm Castings. Growing Roses From Seed.

Show Transcript

GB 193 Worm Castings. Roses from Seed. TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred  0:00  

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred  0:31  

If you’re in the habit of buying bags of worm castings for your garden, don’t delay putting them in your soil. They have a limited shelf life. And a lot can go wrong if you wait too long. America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, has tips for using bagged worm castings. Did you know, you can grow roses from seed? A Master Rosarian tells us how to do it. We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go! 

A Warning About Bagged Worm Castings

Farmer Fred  1:16  

We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics podcast. You know how to get in touch with us: you can leave a message at SpeakPipe, speakpipe.com/gardenbasics, you don't incur any phone charges that way. And of course, you can always call us and leave a question: 916-292-8964 916-292-8964 . A couple of other ways you can get some questions into us. If you go to gardenbasics.net, you can leave a question there. Maybe you have pictures you want to send along, that's always helpful. Send your question and your pictures to me via email to Fred at farmerfred.com. And again, speakpipe.com/gardenbasics. That's a great way to get your voice on the air here, or go to gardenbasics.net, and leave a question there. Debbie Flower is here to help us answer the questions, and people love to get information from Debbie. You know, by the way, it's trademarked now, she is America's favorite retired college horticultural professor.

Debbie Flower  2:21  

Gee thanks, Fred. 

Farmer Fred  2:22  

Sure. And Aileen left us a message at speakpipe.com. And Debbie, it was a very intriguing message.

Debbie Flower  2:32  

It was. This is a good thought. She's a good thinking woman.

Farmer Fred  2:35  

All right, here's Aileen. 

Aiieen  2:36  

Hi, Farmer Fred. I have a question about worm castings. I've heard that worm castings are really kind of volatile, and they only stay good for like 15 minutes after you harvest them out of your worm bin. But then I also see them being sold in bags at garden stores. So what's the truth? I mean, it's probably not the worst thing to add old worm castings to your garden. But maybe it doesn't even hold a candle to what your backyard worm castings can do? Help me out here. Thank you.

Farmer Fred  3:05  

Well, Aileen, you're right on several points there.

Debbie Flower  3:10  

Yes, she is. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  3:11  

But there's one that we will be emphasizing, too: is that old worm castings may actually repel water.

Debbie Flower  3:18  

Right. Old worm castings don't have as much value as the new ones right out of the garden. As she mentioned, there was a study actually  published in 2014, in the Journal of Applied Horticulture. It's called, "The Effect of Storage on Some Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Vermicast." So Vermicast, being the worm castings.

Farmer Fred  3:41  

Being America's Favorite Retired College Horticultural Professor, you're probably familiar with the Journal of Applied Horticulture. Would you say that is a reputable publication?

Debbie Flower  3:52  

Yes, it's a peer reviewed publication, which means they get the article and they will send it out to peers, people who are similar to the people sending it in. So in general, these are professors or graduate students who are doing this study and people will review it for different things. This statistician will review the article for making sure that the statistics were done correctly. In this case, probably a worm farmer or worm researcher will read the article to make sure that the things said about worms and worm castings are legit. So it goes out to a number of people in the field, who then make comments and it has to pass this peer review before it will be published in the journal.

Farmer Fred  4:32  

To give you a short answer, Aileen, those bagged worm castings, according to this study, they're good for 60 days,

Debbie Flower  4:39  

Right. It talks about what's in them. Fresh worm castings have a lot of nitrogen in them and a lot of nitrogen can be very good in the garden or there can be too much and it can be too hot and burn the plants. So you get a lot of nitrogen. You get some iron, some zinc, some copper, phosphorus, potassium. Worm castings do contain organic matter and they contain very broken down organic matter which we call humus, which is pretty stable. It has some good characteristics in the soil and one of those being that it is high in what we call "cation exchange capacity". It holds on to cations, or positively charged ions. So nutrients that plants can use, as well as holding on to water and it lets them go when the plant needs it. All of that is good and that humus part of it will not change over time. But there are also live organisms in fresh worm castings, and those don't survive forever. And they're good live organisms, and there's water too. And there's water. Yes, it's moist, and that disappears and that disappears, right. 

Farmer Fred  5:41  

Let me read the abstract from this study in the Journal of Applied Horticulture to give you an idea in fairly simple English, so here we go: "The study revealed that most of the characteristics of the castings were retained during the first 60 days of storage. Further as storage was continued, the physical properties such as total and water filled pore space were reduced by 11 and 40%, respectively. The water holding capacity of castings also reduced about 82% and exhibited high degree of water repellency. Whereas, the bulk density and particle density of castings increased two-fold. These changes may impede the water availability, oxygen diffusion and plant root penetration in the field. The nitrogen loss of 49% was recorded due to intense ammonia volatilization. There was more than 75% loss in potassium and phosphorus content and a significant reduction in the concentration of minor and trace nutrients. These changes in the properties of castings reduced the beneficial impact of vermicast on plant growth."  Well, that's pretty direct.

Debbie Flower  6:54  

It is, it is. And there are tables in this article of their results, the amount of time they looked at these worm castings were seven days every week, seven days, 14-21 days, then the table skips to 60 days, then 90 days and then greater than 120. So it's not all that long. 120 is four months.

Farmer Fred  7:12  

That's right. And what concerns me is the fact that if it gets too dry, it's going to repel water. And it's going to make it tough as that abstract mentioned, for plant roots to penetrate it

Debbie Flower  7:25  

Right. So you know, you're not going to want to grow in 100% worm castings.

Farmer Fred  7:29  

Yeah. And if you do use it, you're probably want to somehow saturate it again, too, especially if it's older than 60 days.

Debbie Flower  7:36  

Yes. So that would be putting it in a bucket, let's say and mixing it with some warm water and using your hands.

Farmer Fred  7:44  

Well, that brings up an interesting thought. We just did a segment about compost tea. And I'm wondering if you took those worm castings and put them in a permeable bag, into a five gallon bucket, along with water and an aquarium pump, and basically put air back into the system, and then used it, if that would help. 

Debbie Flower  8:02  

Good question. Yeah, we don't know the answer. We'd have to do the research. And again, you're looking at after 60 days, after 60 days after harvest, or 60 days of storage.

Farmer Fred  8:14  

I have talked to the makers of worm composting products, I have talked to retail outlets that carry them to get their point of view on this. The manufacturer says, "We can't make it fast enough, and get it out there fast enough, there's such high demand for it." And that's a good thing. Because that means that when a pallet of worm castings shows up at your favorite garden center, it's going to move quickly. And then you, the consumer, has to be the one to use it within a month or so.  But generally speaking from the plant where it's made, to the retailer, may be just a few days, hopefully. And depending on how many pallets of worm castings that garden center purchased, it may disappear within a week, it might take a month. And if it takes longer than two months, I think as a customer, what I would get in the habit of doing, if you buy worm castings in bags is to ask them, "when did this arrive?" And if it's longer than 60 days, if they're telling the truth, maybe do something else.

Debbie Flower  9:17  

Yeah, there are people who do it as their local small business, right?

Farmer Fred  9:22  

Yeah, that's a good point. 

Debbie Flower  9:23  

So, that's something to look into. You can get it .That's something I asked for  Mother's Day one year and my husband found a local vermicomposter and she had another job and so she only harvested on certain days and he had to wait for those days and then drive over to her house and and buy bags of vermicompost. That was very fresh.

Farmer Fred  9:45  

I knew a guy in Galt (CA) who said, "yeah, come on by. And if you shovel it, I'll give you 20% off." There you go. So yeah, it can be that fresh, it can be that fresh and to apply it that fresh would be great. 

Debbie Flower  9:56  

It would be cool because there are microbes, live organisms in the worm castings that are beneficial to the plants, and you would retain most of those by applying it fresh.

Farmer Fred  10:07  

So Aileen, I guess you're gonna have to form a close alliance with your favorite garden center or nursery. And hopefully, they will level with you about how long that packaged product has been there. 

Debbie Flower  10:20  

Hopefully they will know. 

Farmer Fred  10:21  

Hopefully. Yeah, and that's the other thing too. I went around checking bags for dates. And I didn't see any dates. I saw bar codes. So maybe there are manufacturing dates embedded in the barcode? But how do you get access to that? 

Debbie Flower  10:34  

And then where is the plant where it was bagged? Is it on the East Coast? And so, this sat in a truck for a week? I don't know. 

Farmer Fred  10:41  

Yeah, there are worm casting factories, if you will, here in California, several of them but I imagine every area would have their own look, it seems to be a very localized industry. The bag soil amendment industry, it seems to be a very local enterprise.

Debbie Flower  10:58  

I agree. And worm castings are often associated with dairy farms, because the manure is fed to the worms and the worms turn it into vermicompost. I read another paper, another article where the thing that the worms were fed was paper. And so it might be a recycling thing. I don't know exactly where this compost is being made, or what they're being fed, or the effect that that would have on the result.

Farmer Fred  11:22  

We'll have a link in today's show notes on this report from the Journal of Applied Horticulture on the effect of storage on some physical and chemical characteristics of vermicast, you can read it for yourself. (https://www.horticultureresearch.net/jah/2014_16_2_112_116.PDF ).  At the very end, there are references that you can research for yourself on worm castings, and everything that was in this report.

Debbie Flower  11:42  

Yeah, quite a number of them. It was very well researched. Yeah. Another tact to take is we're not there right now at this time of year; but in your own compost pile, or as you do on your vegetable beds, if you put them to sleep in the fall usually put leaves on them and cultivate your own population of worms that will leave the worm castings right where you want them.

Farmer Fred  12:05  

Yeah, it's amazing how that works. I'm always amazed at when you start mulching soil with a good organic product like oak leaves or chipped and shredded tree parts. And a year later, you go and dig down. All of a sudden, all these worms are there that weren't there before. 

Debbie Flower  12:23  

Yes, worms are incredible. I am not super well versed in in vermicomposting. I have done it a few times. And I've watched the demonstrations at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. But their population ebbs and flows, depending on the food supply.

Farmer Fred  12:37  

Right, that makes sense. That's true of many things that live in the soil do. And it's one thing we learned about with compost tea: You're wasting your money if you're applying compost tea to soil that doesn't have an active microbial life in it already, 

Debbie Flower  12:54  

if it's dead. 

Farmer Fred  12:55  

yes, it needs some life, first, in order to get it to multiply. But as far as making your own worm castings, if you have a worm bin, well, that's a good place to start. But if you have any working knowledge of it, you know that it takes months to get maybe a couple of cups of worm castings.

Debbie Flower  13:13  

Yeah,  the part I liked the best was the leachate, the liquid, that came out of it. And I would collect that. My worm bin was a tiered commercially made product, a tiered one. And they had a spigot for the liquid to come out the bottom. And I would dilute that and water my house plants with it and they loved that stuff. 

Farmer Fred  13:33  

And that's from your personal experience. 

Debbie Flower  13:34  

That's my personal experience. 

Farmer Fred  13:36  

It's not a peer reviewed study, because there are no peer reviewed studies on worm leachate. And it's a mystery, until somebody studies it,  how to apply it and where to apply it. But just in hearing people who have worm castings, they will have worn leachate and what they do with it, and the results that they see.  And yeah, worm leachate is easy to get.  I'm up a gallon every week. 

Debbie Flower  13:36  

Yeah. And what do you do with it? 

Farmer Fred  14:05  

Well, based on my own experience, not a peer reviewed study, I am putting it around plants in the garden and around vegetable plants, not over the leaves, but around the vegetables.

Debbie Flower  14:15  

Are you diluting it? 

Farmer Fred  14:16  

No, I'm not. 

Debbie Flower  14:17  

That was my fear. When I got it I feared that it would be too hot, as I was talking about at the beginning, about to have too much nitrogen in it or too many salts, which are how plants can absorb nutrients. And when it's the right amount, it's great. But if it's too much, then it burns. The plants can burn the roots. So I was diluting it.

Farmer Fred  14:36  

I would think it would really depend on what you were feeding the worms. 

Debbie Flower  14:39  

Yeah, that's true. 

Farmer Fred  14:40  

Garbage in garbage out. That's true. I remember Jack LaLanne, any of you remember Jack LaLane, TV exercise freak? 

Debbie Flower  14:48  

Yes. 

Farmer Fred  14:48  

And he had a white German Shepherd. But he always used to say that the best fed person in your household is the garbage disposal. Because all that great stuff that people take out of vegetables before they boil it, this is back in the 50s and 60s, went down the drain. And that was the healthiest part of the food. So if your worms are eating healthy fruits and vegetables that you're discarding, you're going to have a very healthy bunch of worm castings.

Debbie Flower  15:19  

Right. I wonder about that other article I read where the worms are eating paper. Paper is very high in carbon, it has a little bit of nitrogen, but very high in carbon. And so what are they going to get out of that? And I don't have the answer.

Farmer Fred  15:32  

Yeah, I don't know that either. There's a lot more to learn about there.

Debbie Flower  15:38  

This was a 2014 article, I haven't found much since. I wish people would do more research on it. If you're into this, go get your PhD, do some research.

Farmer Fred  15:50  

And if you're an industry, you can write a grant for it. If you're in the manufacturing business of soil amendments, I would if I owned one of those companies, I'd pay for those studies. But then you'd be accused of biased results.

Debbie Flower  16:05  

Unfortunately, many of the studies done in horticulture and I assume other sciences as well, are funded by industry because it takes money, it takes money to pay the student and the professors who work on it, and they need supplies and time and it has to come from somewhere.

Farmer Fred  16:25  

We're all gonna die.

Debbie Flower  16:28  

This article, there were some that I was reading were that weren't quite as applicable, but they were so into a certain product with a product name they used in the article and that just turned me off. I didn't want to know about that product. I wanted to know about the worm castings in general, right?

Farmer Fred  16:45  

Well, Aileen, there you go. If you have the room to have a big worm farm, that would be the best way to get lots of worm castings quickly. It really comes back to what we've always talked about: gardening is GIY, grow it yourself. That's the healthiest food you can get. And in this case, the healthiest soil amendment. So I hope that helps Aileen. If you want, go to the show notes and download the link to "Effective Storage on Some Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Vermicast". Debbie Flower, thanks for your help on this.

Debbie Flower  17:16  

It's a pleasure. You're welcome, Fred.

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Farmer Fred  17:18  

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Farmer Fred  17:22  

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Farmer Fred  20:21  

Now, you may think that if you want a new rosebush you either gotta buy one or maybe you know somebody who's fairly clever and can start a rose from a cutting. How about growing a rose from a seed pod? What, you can do that? Let's find out. Master Rosarian and retired state entomologist Baldo Villegas is here. We're in Baldo's Acres here. And it's a beautiful time of the year, here in spring, where 2500 or 3000 roses are in bloom. And he's got a lot of seedling volunteers of roses. Tell us how to do it Baldo.

Baldo Villegas  20:56  

Well, when I prune my roses, this in the winter, I take the hips, what's left over from the flowers. And then I put them right next to the plant where I got them from. I open up the seed case, also called the hip, the hip is another word for the little rose apple. Anyway, that's the fruit of the rose. I open it up and then I get the seeds out and then I  plant them right next to the rose. And then in a few weeks, little seedlings are coming out. And then what I do is I observe some of those seedlings. And if I like them, I keep them. If it's something that the seedling has a lot of disease, like a lot of powdery mildew, then I just yank it. But I wait for for it to flower. Once it flowers, if I liked the flower, I keep it.  I observe it for at least three years because I want to see how big it gets. How floriferous it is. If it repeats bloom in like every six weeks like a normal rose, then I go for it and I keep it. If it decides to bloom once and nothing else, then I just yank it. If I don't like the rose, I get rid of it.

Farmer Fred  22:03  

At what point do you move those seedlings away from the mother plant?

Baldo Villegas  22:26  

After the first bloom.

Farmer Fred  22:28  

Okay, so you're doing your last pruning in late fall, early winter, you find those rose hips, you open them up, you plant the seeds, they probably aren't going to sprout till the following spring, I would think.

Baldo Villegas  22:40  

No, some seeds will sprout just a few weeks later. But yes, it might be true, I don't keep track,  I just kind of plant them. And then when I'm weeding the area, if I see some seedlings that might be  keepers, I put a stick by it, so I don't step on it. And the stick reminds me that I have a seedling there. And then later on, I grab a pot and a shovel, and then I put them in a pot, and I move it somewhere else where I won't be accidentally stepping on it. And then I observe it for, like I said, three years. And then if I decide to keep it, I keep it. Otherwise I just throw it away.

Farmer Fred  22:41  

A lot of people think that roses, in order to bloom, have to be grafted to another rootstock. So obviously these roses are on their own root system. Can you have successful roses that way?

Baldo Villegas  23:38  

Very successful. You can be very successful doing that. I have a lot of seedling roses in my yard, that I started that way. And a lot of them are keepers. And I would like to introduce them eventually.

Farmer Fred  23:53  

All right. Because they're not going to necessarily be an exact duplicate of the parent, are they?

Baldo Villegas  23:57  

No, no, they are unique just like when you have a kid, your kid is going to be totally different than you. So it might have a lot of characteristics that remind you of you, but a lot of times they're more beautiful, better than you.

Farmer Fred  24:07  

And then if you like it and you like the flower, you like the health of the plant, then you could take cuttings from it and start those cuttings.

Baldo Villegas  24:23  

Well, yeah, you can, you can propagate it, and then you can you give it to your friends. You can register it, or you can even approach a rose grower and you might get some money from  the rose grower. Not that much money. But you know, a few bucks a year, that will help.

Farmer Fred  24:46  

 I think you might have better luck buying lottery tickets.

Baldo Villegas  24:49  

Correct. Yeah, I have a lot of friends that have seedlings where growers are not interested.

Farmer Fred  24:57  

Well, that's okay because you grew it from a seedling yourself. You can always brag about that and its unique coloration as well.

Baldo Villegas  25:03  

You can also name it after  your cat, you can name it after your girlfriend, you can name it after your wife. You know you can do all kinds of things and you propagate it and you give it to your friends and say, Hey, this is my Cat Rose. And, you know, it could be a real nice gift.

Farmer Fred  25:22  

There you go. How to start roses from seeds. State entomologist, retired, Baldo Villegas, still a Master Rosarian. It's great being out here at Baldo's Acres, admiring all the blooming roses. Thank you, Baldo.

Baldo Villegas  25:33  

Thank you, Fred. Come on over anytime. Bring me some plants again.

Farmer Fred  25:39  

Yeah, everybody wants tomato and pepper plants. Fine.

Baldo Villegas  25:44  

Thank you, Fred.

“Beyond the Basics” Newsletter and GardenBasics.net

Farmer Fred  25:51  

Recently, in episode 191, we talked with Garden Author Robert Kourik about creating a Sustainable Food Garden. One of his keys to success: attracting beneficial insects to your yard, to go after the bad bugs. But those beneficials need certain plants to call home. Check out the latest edition of the Garden Basics Newsletter, “Beyond the Basics”. In it we list the beneficial insects you want in your garden, what they look like in all their life stages, and the plants that they are attracted to. It’s in the newsletter that goes beyond the basics, the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, Beyond the Basics newsletter. Find it via the link in today’s show notes, or visit our new website, Garden Basics dot net . There, you can find a link to the newsletter in one of the tabs on the top of the page, also, you can listen to any of our previous editions of the podcast, and read an enhanced transcript of the podcast episode you are now listening to. That’s at Garden Basics dot net, where you can also link to the Garden Basics newsletter, Beyond the Basics, and it’s free. Take a deeper dive into gardening, with the Beyond the Basics newsletter. Find it at garden basics dot net or at garden basics dot substack dot com. Thanks for listening and thanks for reading!

Farmer Fred  27:13  

Garden Basics With Farmer Fred comes out every Tuesday and Friday and is brought to you by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, visit our website, GardenBasics dot net. That’s where you can find out about the free, Garden Basics newsletter, Beyond the Basics. And thank you so much for listening.