Anyone with experience with Worm Castings. I bought some at my Farmers Market over the weekend. They claim will repel, white flies, aphids, spider mites, scale, rust and root eating menatodes. Also claims to be safe on edibles, humans, animals and safe to handle.. What does everyone think. Thanks for the help..

Worm castings are worm poop. If the folks who sold the castings had big manure piles, the castings are probably cow manure that's been eaten then digested by worms. Basically, it's just nice, soft, well textured soil at this point. It will NOT repel anything. It will NOT keep away any pests. It is just good stuff for roots of plants to grow in. Those folks who sold it to you are making unfounded claims.

I have bought pickup loads of worm castings, I have gardened with the stuff a lot, and all sorts of pests including scale and rust can visit a garden, regardless of whether you use castings or not.

Worm castings are good, but a little bag is basically a little bag. A truck load is much more beneficial. They are fine for vegetables, basically they are good quality dirt.

Thank you so much Mountain Cat....I knew the answer would be in our Forum. I tend not to believe claims of curing everything in anything I do...I just wanted the proof...Thanks, again.

Maybe, possibly if you were to amend your soil with several tons of worm casting (cost prohibitive however) that might help some in keeping those pests from your plants by your growing strong and healthy plants that are less desireable to most insect pests.
People that sell stuf such as worm casting and make claims such as that do a great disservice to the organic minded people of the world because that gives those the think in terms of "conventional" gardening a good chance to refute what we know.

I'm going to take this issue up with the Lady that sold me a small bag for $5 at the Farmers Market, a certified organic market. I may also talk to the supporters of the market. This really gets me because everyone at the market that sells is reportedly an organic farmer. Thanks for all the help and ideas...

If the manure used was from organically raised animals, then digested by worms, the castings would be organic. If the manure was just manure from whereever, I don't know if it could be called organic because I don't think the worms would have eaten every single bit of the cow manure, thus leaving behind some residue of whatever antibiotics and chems might have been given to the cows. That said, even so, I'd use the worm castings. It's the claiming those casting do all that stuff you mentioned that is wrong. Worm castings just don't do those things.

I don't know that the person selling them truly knew much about the castings, she probably was going off of heresay. Heck, making false claims is normal nowadays, and it's not that folks necessarily do it on purpose, they just repeat what they heard from other sources, and assume things are true, then repeat.

As Kimm mentioned, using a huge amount of worm castings might result in those benefits, but that's because worm castings are great to grow things in and improve the quality of the soil, in a big way, if tons and tons are used. But it's not just the castings that do this, but the whole interconnectedness of healthy soil, soil microbes, good nutrient availability, and so on, and all of that affects the way insects may or may not be attracted to a garden. But it's not the worm castings alone that do this, and especially not one itsy bitsy little bag.

Once upon a time I even sold such worm castings myself, but never ever claimed they were more than an excellent growing medium.