[dessant]

Thanks for your helpful answer! I have some experience with using vermicompost, though I do daydream about making my own stuff one day.

I've read that vermicultures have a bit of an issue with not neutralizing plant pathogens that you introduce with the worm feed, have you had similar problems with composting, or does the heat usually take care of this issue?

[Panino]

Hey, glad to help. Yes it's true, vermiculture doesn't destroy pathogens to anywhere near the same degree as composting, and the heat is an important factor. Pathogens aren't a concern in composting, they're simply destroyed by the process. Further, composting is superior at degrading or destroying other inputs like pharmaceuticals - with a few exceptions like certain chemotherapy drugs; gasoline; TNT; insecticides and herbicides and other such poisons, etc. In contrast, red worms have a much smaller range of diet, and again don't produce biological heat. Composting is a powerful process and thermophilic microorganisms are extraordinary little creatures.

That said, vermiculture is also great, and one of the nice things about it is that you can make it inside an apartment like in a container in your closet, while compost is made outside and needs at least 1 cubic meter of material. If I couldn't make compost I'd make worm castings via vermiculture, and I wouldn't worry too much about pathogens.