Worms and Weed: Just Say NO!
One of the questions we get pretty frequently at the Worm Wranch is, “Can worms compost my weeds?”
Actually, we highly recommend that you DON”T put weeds into your worm bins, because the seeds will basically pass right through and end up back in the garden, even bigger than before, because they’re living large off all that groovy worm compost that makes everything grow better. Before you’re tempted to toss the weeds in, make sure that you put them through a serious HOT compost process to kill off the seeds before they get to the worms. A well maintained hot compost pile can get up to 150º F., which will do a good job of killing off those pesky weeds. (My personal experience tells me it takes a lot of effort in mixing and turning to get that sort of sustained heat in a conventional compost pile, but it’s actually pretty easy to achieve with a rotary composter … but that’s a blog post for another day.)
Here at WWWR, we have a process of drying and curing the finished solid compost so it will come out at just the right moisture level for passing through a sifting screen before we package it up for sale. That way it comes out nice and fluffy and ready for easy use. One of the benefits of the curing process is that we will typically see a fair amount of seeds germinate, but because we stir it frequently to promote even drying and to break up any clumps, the seedlings are prevented from growing and most of the viable seed is thus eliminated in our final product.
However, because our compost is fresh and not sterilized, you will still have some seeds that might end up germinating. Depending on what kind of food waste ended up in the food mix, you might see tomato or melon or squash occasionally popping up in your garden, with no memory of having planted it. You can certainly allow these mystery volunteers to have a place in your planting (and they’ll probably end up as big and healthy because of your wise use of worm castings for fertilizer), or you can just weed them out along the way!
As for worms and WEED (or ‘pakalolo’, as we say here in Hawaii), most growers will tell you that vermicompost is by far the best natural fertilizer you can get and it’s always in ‘high’ demand….