Composting is a great way to enhance your garden soil using just the waste material produced from vegetables, fruits, and grass, dry leaves and so on. It is also eco-friendly as it considerably lowers the burden on landfills. Vermicomposting is one such effective method of composting. It uses earthworms to make a rich compost soil. When earthworms consume waste matter in the soil and excrete it back into the soil, the soil is enriched with nutrients and beneficial micro-organisms. There are many advantages of using vermicompost organic fertilizers which we will discuss one by one in the following paragraphs.
A natural nutrition
Vermicomposting is a natural process. We could say that it is a method of simply assisting a naturally occurring process for the benefit of plants. This makes vermicompost a very effective natural nutrition for plants. Plant roots are able to absorb these nutrients quite easily from the soil. Moreover, this type of compost has worm-mucous attached to it. This prevents it from getting drained easily from the soil, unlike the artificial chemical fertilizers.
It’s 100% organic
This is one of the most important benefits of vermicomposting. The compost you get by this method is completely organic and is safe for the plant and also for animals and humans who consume the leaves, fruits or any other parts of these plants. It does not contain any form of chemicals or toxic materials that are found in other types non-organic farming methods.
Rich in micro-organisms
Vermicomposting begins when earthworms consume the waste matter in the soil. When this material passes through their alimentary canal, it is enriched with many beneficial microbes and bacteria. These micro-organisms make plants more disease resistant and also drive many pests away. Another indirect advantage is that the presence of microbes in the soil can attract more birds to the area. This too helps keep a check on plant pests.
Make plants healthier
Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used because they seem to improve the yield, at least in the short term. This is done by providing ready-made nutrition to plants and killing pests. However, they do nothing to improve the health of the plant and improve their disease resistance.
They kill beneficial insects and microbes as well.
Composting of any kind – vermicomposting in particular – improves plant health and their inner disease resistance. This also results in the lesser need of fertilizers and pesticides, thus freeing the soil from harmful toxic material and improving its overall quality. Also, the nutrients in vermicompost are released and are made available to plants slowly, unlike chemical fertilizers that bombard the plants with artificially produced nutrients.
Help plants grow better
There are hormones in the compost made by earthworms that facilitate the growth processes in plants and also speed up the germination process. Unlike chemical fertilizers, this type of compost makes the plant itself grow stronger and better without much outside aid.
Improves water retention
Vermicompost improves water retention of the soil. Being a colloid, it can hold up to 9 times its own weight in water. This is particularly useful when there is a shortage of water. The water in the soil that is composed using this method evaporates slowly.
