Worms Ate My Home Work

A lot of things happen on a farm during the night.

We don't always think about it but here is one example.

Thinking Differently - As easy as 1, 2, 3

Farmers can often circumvent the conventional wisdom and improve their bottom line by just thinking differently.

Let's look at some examples...

What is a Worm Farm

Have you heard of an ant farm. A worm farm is similar. It consists of...

Worm Farms Are Back

We had a very severe winter and many of the adult Red Wigglers didn't make it. So we have been waiting for the new hatchlings to grow bigger before offering Worm Farms at the farmers market.

Well good news...

Ideas for Marketing More Compost

One of the folks that worked at the waste-to-energy facility asked me for some ideas on how they could better serve their customers and how they could sell more compost. They were getting quite a pile of inventory.

I'm one of the biggest advocates for compost from the waste-to-energy facility. I'm sure we send several hundred folks to get compost each year in the course of our work at the farmers market and talking to fellow growers.

Here are 26 ideas for an even bigger success...

Bacteriavore

The human body has approximately 100 trillion bacteria in our intestines. This is a number 10 times greater than the total number of human cells in the body. We are vastly out numbered by our intestinal flora. The metabolic activities of these bacteria are similar to that of an organ to process our food. It is interesting to note that these gut bacteria have a combined total of 100 times as many genes as there are in the human genome. Somewhere between 200 to 1000 different species live in the intestine.This is an extremely beneficial symbiotic relationship. These bacteria ferment unused energy, train the immune system, prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria, produce vitamins and provide a host to store fats. This baterial culture is call the human microbiome. I submit the host to this genetically enriched culture is a bateriavore (look it up, this is actually a word).

It is important to understand these special bateria as we consider our food system. The human microbiome has typically dined on whole, natural and traditional foods. The processed and manufactured foods of our current generation are foreign to our microbiome and frankly the other microbes in our world as well.

How to Grow a Worm Farm

A worm farm is a small scale project to multiply red wiggler worms for processing of kitchen scraps for educational purposes. We offer half pound containers of worms and worm bedding to start your worm farm. Once again this year we have an abundance of red wiggler worms from our compost. The presence of worms means the compost is in prime condition and is enriched by the worms. The worms will eat their weight of organic matter each day and they are very efficient.

Worms are low maintenance and very easy to care for. Start small with a medium size rubbermaid tub or 5 gallon pail and our worm bedding. Add the worms to the bedding and gradually add kitchen scraps over the first few days as the worms get adjusted to their new environment. Don't overdue it on the scraps. It will take time for the worms to multiply and get used to eating kitchen waste. Don't put meat or grease into the worm bin. Vegetable waste is the best.

Keep your bin in the garage or other space outside the house where it won't freeze or get too warm. Worms reach adult maturity in 60 days. You will already have some adult breeders in your container so they will multiply quickly. Add new bedding periodically, good compost, news paper strips soaked in water will work or you can get a refreshed bag of worm bedding from us. Keep the bedding moist but not too wet or the bedding will sour. Don't let the bedding dry out or the worms won't be able to breath well and become sluggish.

You can remove some of the bedding and use it to pot garden plants or use it in the garden. It will be enriched and the plants will love it.

Red wigglers thrive in a high organic matter enviornment such as a cool compost pile or leaf mold. They typically don't do well in the open garden environment. You can use a bright light to harvest some of the bedding by scraping the bedding  away from the worms and the worms will crawl deeper into the bedding. You can use the enriched bedding in the garden.

Worm farms make a great teaching tool or summer project. There are some great books in the library and some good articles on-line. If you have questions please stop by our booth.

Red Wigglers

"Dad, I think the worms are worth immensely more than the compost", said Reed our high school freshman.

We had an amazing amount of Red Wrigglers in the compost pile this spring. As we were making our potting mix we would sort out hand fulls and hand fulls of red worms.

We don't do much fishing so what to do with our abundance?

A Farm For The Child In All of Us