Composting Worms "Worm Tea or Leachate"?

Freedom of speech?  I can't morally write what I'm thinking about worm bins with drain spigots. Suffice to say it makes me sick to see this sort of thing being marketed as educational.

So a worm farmer helped to design this contraption?  Wow. 

Here is a perfect example of "in my opinion" of a poor worm system and the operating/care instructions.  Aside from everything else, I'm going to focus on the drain spigot and its use.

To start with, their definition of "Worm Tea" is wrong. They say to pour water in the unit and through the castings which runs out the spigot.  This is leachate, not worm tea.

Leachate is any liquid that drains from worm bedding.  It contains nutrients, so does sewer sludge.  Leachate can/may benefit garden plants, it can/may also kill them and can/may contain harmful, disease and sickness causing pathogens that are anaerobic microbes which thrive in low-level oxygen mediums such as a saturated worm bin.  Leachate, in my experience and opinion is only good for one thing...to prohibit healthy wormery reproduction so that the worm population dies over time and more worms are needed by the poor consumer who got ripped off by hype for the sake of profit.  So yes, leachate is good for the worm bin companies who market and sale the spigot systems, who also sale worms or have affiliations with worm suppliers. 

Not saying that any particular company is definitely doing this sort of thing, just my opinion over years of seeing many people have the same problem issues with this type of system.  As long as people fall for the hype and buy, buy, buy, the manufacturers will sell, sell, sell!

True worm tea is made by aerating healthy worm castings in water, exactly like making compost tea and is how aerobic wastewater treatment systems operate.  Beneficial bacteria are multiplied in the aeration process as harmful ones are killed off.  Leachate can and will kill foliage when applied to plants, especially if it is anaerobic. 

As worm tea is aerated, beneficial microbes multiply. They also consume all the available food in the water and die.  Dead microbes become waste sludge and prime conditions exist for anaerobic microbes.  So good worm tea is made fresh, from fresh and used fresh.  A batch of brewing worm tea can be maintained by adding a spoonful of molasses every few days for a few weeks at the most, then is best to start a new batch.

Aerated worm tea from pure castings will never harm any plant, regardless of how much is applied.  It contains chitenase from the castings which help protect the plant from insect pests and all the nutrients in worm tea are available for plant use versus leachate, which must first become aerobic by contact with an oxygen rich environment for a period of time so that the anaerobic microbes die off and beneficial, aerobic microbes reproduce and take their place.

Honestly, I would really like to see these folks who market these types of systems run a batch of the worm castings from their systems through a mesh separator/harvestor.  They will of course have to allow the mud from their systems to dry enough to handle, then they will physically have to crush or rub the dry clods over the mesh to get their concept of "worm castings???".

Soon I will show you what good worm castings are.

I will never stop exposing the myths that these types of systems propagate.

Edit... How to make worm tea...

Put a pound of healthy worm castings in a five gallon plastic pail. Add three - four gallons of rainwater or otherwise purified or non-chlorinated water. Pond or creek water will even work fine. Aerate with an aquarium air pump with air stone 24-48 hours prior to use, foaming is normal and a sign of microbial reproduction.  Filter and use liquid as needed as a foliar plant spray or water directly on plant roots. Keep aerated at all times.