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11otis

Camellia Flowers

7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago

Has anybody fed the worms Camellia flowers.

I have collected a couple of buckets of the fallen Camellia flowers. Not sure if it's safe to feed them to the worms.

Comments (5)

  • 7 years ago

    Do you have some reason to think they won't be safe to feed? Even so, easy enough approach - start by feeding some to them, see how they react, add more if no problem. Also keep in mind - lots of things that worms are reputed to 'not like' are perfectly fine after they rot and decompose a bit. So leaving them in buckets and feeding after they've started decomposing will likely work anyway.

  • 7 years ago

    armoured: Thanks for commenting. Didn't realized someone commented.

    I have no proof, just concerned. I did it last year and after a while I was wondering why the worm population seemed to decrease. My bin is a 2' x 2' x 4'(length). Are you familiar with Bentley's VermBin? This is the VB48 and I have it running since 2012 starting with 3 lbs. of worms. This bin should be overflowing with worms by now but it doesn't.. It is heated by a cable heater in winter and the side walls are insulated. And it's rat-proof.

    So, when nobody commented after several days, I removed the flowers and store them in buckets. Good thing they were in clumps, easy to remove. And my thinking was parallel to yours, let the flowers rot in the buckets and then feed them to the worms.

    The reason for this: I had a few whole oranges rotting in a small bucket and after they looked really gross, I fed them to the worms and they swarmed around it. They wouldn't have done that if it were harmful, right?

    I also read (don't remember where) re. pesticide or dewormer in horse-apples to break down with time.

    I did google and asked if Camellia flowers were poisonous but no direct hits.

    I will report in a few months.

  • 7 years ago

    @otis: yes, you're on the right track. Most foods and stuff that can be added to a bin become more attractive to worms after they've rotted a bit (both physically to get softer and chemically as microbes break things down). This includes things that are often called bad for worms.

    Oranges and most citrus are a good example: the rinds have a compound (forget the name) that worms don't like and may even be bad for them. But if you've ever left an orange out and watched its rind get covered in that distinctive blue powder (a fungus which I think is a penicillin relative), that compound gets broken down and neutralized. I presume the worms are happy to eat the fungi, but if not, some other microbe eats them and then the worms eat that.

    I don't know camellia, but not aware of any reason to think they're bad for worms. Note that the danger/strength of some concentrated extracts from plants doesn't mean the plant itself is dangerous; the strength/concentration matter.

  • 7 years ago

    ""the strength/concentration matter.""

    OK, got you. Thanks.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    Yep, they're OK.

    I even found fat worms hiding between the petals from the time when I removed the flowers from the bin after I got concerned.

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