Winter 2015-2016: Worms Archives · The Natural Farmer

Vermicomposting:

A Sustainable Solution For Garbage Disposal

By Ken Perry · Tagged With: Vermicomposting, worms

Worms in Compost by Karen Kerney

Every year millions of tons of organic refuse finds its way to landfills, incinerators, municipal sewer systems and septic systems via trash pickup or garbage disposals. The environmental Protection Agency estimates that on average, each American generates 4.3 pounds of trash each day. On a yearly basis, this is equivalent to burying 82,000 football fields 6 feet deep in compacted garbage. Approximately 47% of this amount is organic in nature. The environmental and financial implications of this are huge. The best way to mitigate the resultant environmental problems might well lie in dealing with it before it enters the waste stream.

Most people are familiar with the process of composting whereby the natural breakdown (decomposition) of organic materials results in a dark soil-like material which has great value as a soil amendment. Composting is a natural occurrence in nature that humans over years have recognized as a process that can be utilized in a managed way to dispose of refuse. One step beyond this and a complement to it is the utilization of worms to compost organic matter. This is known as vermicomposting, vermi being the Latin term for things relating to worms.
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Getting Started With Worm Bin Composting

(Dances with Worms)?

By Ben Goldberg · Tagged With: worm bins, worms

If you do not have access to an outdoor compost pile, and even if you do, composting food scraps in a worm bin (vermicomposting) is a great way to convert a waste product into a desirable resource. In addition, keeping food scraps out of a landfill, many of which are nearing their maximum capacity, also helps lessen one of the main sources of methane, a generous contributor to global warming. Using worm castings, whether from a bin or outdoor pile, substantially aug-ments the population of beneficial soil dwelling organisms which boost soil vitality, plant immunity, and when used in the proper proportions, can increase growth rate and yield.

Of the several thousand species of earthworms, not all will thrive in a compost bin. Earthworms are either surface dwelling, top-soil-dwelling or deep soil dwelling. Surface dwelling worms specialize in decomposing organic matter, and thus are most likely to thrive in a bin. The most commonly available species to use in temperate regions is the Red Wiggler (Eisenia foetida). These worms adapt well to large numbers in enclosed spaces. They are also voracious feeders, consuming one half to as much as their full body weight per day. They reproduce quickly so you can amass a thriving population quite rapidly. In favorable conditions, red worms will double their population in two to three months.
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The Amazing Red Wiggler Worm

By Nancy Warner · Tagged With: worms

Red wiggler worms

I raise angora rabbits for their wool. I am a fiber artist and I shear the wool, spin it, knit it and weave it into wearable art. In the summer of 1992 I bought worms at a bait shop to put under my rabbit cages to eat the rabbit manure and eliminate “flies.” One Problem: I bought the wrong kind of worms; these worms migrated in the fall. I then did more reading and found out that I needed to use a special worm–red wiggler composting worms, Eisenia fetida. I ordered red wigglers on the internet from Arkansas–$15.00 for 1000 worms. I ordered 3000 and I didn’t need to order more worms until 2009 when I went into business with a friend as The Worm Ladies of Charlestown, Inc. The red wigglers multiplied and solved the problem of too many “flies.” As a result, I discovered the “magic” of worm castings (poop). My gardens and my potted plants were the best due to this soil enhancer. I now have a much broader perspective of the soil food web. I continue this sustainable environment of rabbits, their manure, the worms, and their castings and my plants.

Vermicomposting is a process that relies on earthworms and microorganisms to help stabilize active organic materials and convert them to a valuable soil amendment and source of plant nutrients.
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Creating the Worms’ Perfect Single’s Bar

by Ricky Baruc

By Ricky Baruc · Tagged With: worms

Any young ones in the crowd please close your ears. Cardboard is the perfect singles bar for worms. Worms want to be above ground to have sex, to reproduce, but being above the soil makes them easy prey for birds. So cardboard laid on the ground makes the most perfect environment while protecting them. It’s dark, it’s moist, and promotes a free buffet, and there is a good chance Marvin Gaye is playing sexual healing in the background. With every group that visits our farm and education center I share this and it usually gets their attention. I go on to say, “If you remember one thing from this tour, cardboard is the perfect worm food and worm castings are perfect plant food—a beautiful symbiotic relationship.”

Some of you reading this might be experienced small-scale organic farmers questioning techniques that look a lot like conventional agriculture with excessive use of machinery. Others might be new to, or seeking to enter farming with, a connected, sacred relationship to the soil. On the first farm I owned in the 1980s we used tractors. It was “organic” but the pace and lifestyle was not sustainable. On my second farm where we remain today, I wanted to farm where nature led the way over machinery. With proper planning and thinking ahead I have been able to create a no-till system that is successful without machinery and lets nature do more of the work.
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Gardening with Worms

by Jack Kittredge

By Jack Kittredge · Tagged With: compost, worms

Joe, standing by his compost screening operation, speaks about the
importance of worms in compost and soil fertility.

Many gardeners might be reluctant to garden in Penfield, NY. Just a few miles from the Canadian border halfway across Lake Erie, this suburb of Rochester, NY, features small house lots, neighbors who pride themselves on their meticulous lawns, and hungry deer and other wildlife with no natural predators and plenty of nearby shelter in parks and golf courses.

Yet here urban homesteader Joe Gersitz has chosen to make his stand. Driving up Hotchkiss Circle to his house there is no chance you will go wrong. Instead of the pristine landscaped yards which surround him, Joe has chosen production agriculture on his shaded front and back lawns. The fruits of his efforts are lit-erally to be seen everywhere – piles of produce surrounded by stacked hoops, stands and trellises which have been taken out of use by the time of my October visit, soil covered by cardboard and cover crops, massive compost bins, rain barrels at every gutter, plastic bins and trays, watering cans, solar dryers, dug ponds, partially dismantled small greenhouses, buckets and makeshift devices of every sort.

“I grew the squash vertically this year,” he grins “in front where I have the cover crops now. In the circle were tomatoes and where the taller cover crops are was squash, melons, and cucumbers. I’m going to the store now to get some tomatoes for our lunch!”
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Worms at the Devine Gardens

By Tina Jacobs · Tagged With: worms

In the beginning

The tomato plant on the left was grown using man made fertilizer in potting soil.
The tomato plant on the right was grown
using vermicompost in potting soil.
Both types were planted and trasplanted to bigger pots at the same time. Notice the difference in the root balls at the end of the season. The root ball on the right was almost twice as big and the root system was much denser with many more of the tiny lateral roots and mycorrhizal fungal filaments.

Growing up I watched and helped my Mother tend her plants. She got a lot of pleasure from working with them and seeing them grow. She loved her flowers, vegetables and planted many, many trees and shrubs. She was just happy if her plants were productive; they never were expected to be outstanding. I don’t re-member her using any type of chemical; she was content to let nature bring her what it may.

When I started gardening I wanted my plants to be all that they could be (like the Army slogan). Advertisements and nice packaging also influenced my deci-sion to use chemicals. They made it seem like it was normal and even required to use their products. I remember I wanted the biggest, most beautiful roses I could grow. So I would spray them with some awful smelling white powdery substance. When the kids were little I was convinced I should fertilize my lawn. One time I was spreading dry lawn fertilizer with a push broadcaster as the kids ran around behind me. Thankfully, a neighbor walking by informed me not to let them run through those chemicals barefoot. I think I was barefoot too. Another time I applied fertilizer to my perennial flowers in late June. When I re-turned from vacation the plants looked awful because there had been no rain and the salts in the fertilizer had dehydrated the plants.
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Making Black Gold at Black Dirt Farm

By Jack Kittredge · Tagged With: worms

Tom poses on the ramp by the bin. At the left hens wait for access, on the right is the tractor. Tom uses to move material from the bin every month to compost piles (one of which you can see just beyond the tractor exhaust pipe).

For anyone unfamiliar with New England ways, in the early days when towns were being surveyed and chartered sometimes the folks marking the edge of one town used a slightly different line than the folks surveying the edge of the adjacent town. The difference, often a long narrow slice, was an unincorporated, townless area called a “gore”. Such an area was the 12.5 square mile “Goshen Gore” in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

Finally incorporated in 1867 and named Stannard in honor of Vermont General George Stannard, who became the “Hero of Gettysburg” when his troops were credited with breaking the back of Pickett’s Charge, the town also features Stannard Mountain which rises to over 2600 feet.

On the west slope of the mountain, on a shoulder at an elevation of about 1400 feet, sits Black Dirt Farm – owned by Tom Gilbert and his wife Molly, with their two kids. Molly is from Leyden, Massachusetts, and Tom grew up in Brooklyn, New York – not farm country!
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Worm Farming for the Community a Group Effort to Reduce Food Waste and ‘Close The Loop’

by Kaylin Hawkes

By Kaylin Hawkes · Tagged With: worms

Kaylin and Food Know How community composting program cargo cycle volunteer

The benefits both worm castings and compost add to the vitality of our soils is well documented, as is the effectiveness of these methods in processing food waste and reducing landfill. More and more composting practices are being adopted by homeowners, businesses and even written into policy by local govern-ment, but implementing effective programs and engaging a whole community continues to be a challenge. How do you change people’s perceptions and be-haviors around waste? And how do we increase our ability to grow food in ever expanding urban environments? These are the two interconnected challenges that resulted in the “Food Know How” program, a community composting and food waste reduction initiative I helped coordinate during my two years living in Melbourne, Australia. The initiative was developed by a local non profit, Cultivating Community and the City of Yarra council, among other partners. The program aspired to engage 500 residents, 32 businesses and 3 offices in various composting activities that would ultimately provide compost and worm castings to the community. The idea was to ‘close the loop’, using an extremely abundant local resource (food waste) to give fertility to the soil and increase urban res-idents’ ability to provide their own food.

The program was designed to test different composting strategies including food waste collection, large scale composting, worm farming and residential com-posting at home. I came on board as the cafes coordinator to work with local cafes and restaurants and eventually developed a bicycle based food waste collec-tion.
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Earthworms for Medicine and the Environment

By from “Medicinal Plants in Australia” · Tagged With: worms

In Chinese traditions the Earthworm is a respected remedy that continues to be employed to this day. Powdered, liquefied or made into an ash (depending on the prescription), the remedy is sourced from two species of worm: Pheretima aspergillum, (family Megascolecidae) and Allolobophora caliginosa trapezoides (family Lumbricidae). Clinically, worm remedies are considered useful for feverish disorders (malaria, typhoid, childhood fevers). They possess anticonvulsant and analgesic properties useful for treating seizures, rheumatic pain and the after-effects of stroke (hemiplegia). Earthworm has been a specific for disorders classified as ‘true heat’ conditions, and its use is contraindicated when these characteristics are not present. Experimentally, Di Long has demonstrated sedative and hypotensive properties. It has been used clinically for the treatment of essential hypertension – with a good rate of success (90%). Its vasodilatory activity was attributed to an effect on the central nervous system (Bensky & Gamble 1986; Yeung 1985).
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Red Beauties

by Kaelyn Lamb, Abby Howard, and Sydney Mentzer

By Kaelyn Lamb, Abby Howard, and Sydney Mentzer · Tagged With: worms

In Mrs. Prunier’s class of fifth graders, magic is happening. On her desk is what we like to call a “black gold” factory. The employees in this factory aren’t hu-mans; they’re worms, Red Wiggler worms.

Black gold is another name for compost. Compost is gold, for the plants. These “employees” have a very important job, making compost. In order for the pro-cess to be successful, the fifth grade is checking on them and feeding them daily in their comfortable worm bin also known as the luxury apartment.
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Final Food Safety Regulations Released

Part I: The Preventative Controls Rule governing food processing facilities by Steve Gilman Interstate NOFA Policy Coordinator

By Steve Gilman · Tagged With: Policy

After an intense three-year legislative process formulating the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) begun in Congress in 2009, followed by an unusual two full rounds of public comment correcting the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) controversial proposed rules, the final Preventative Controls Rule regulating food facilities was issued in late-September, 2015.

At this writing, still to come in mid-November is the final FSMA Produce Rule regulating on-farm food safety. Among the hundreds of pages, the most contentious issues to pay attention to will be the agricultural water quality standards and testing frequencies; the interval between manure and compost application and harvest; extent of record-keeping requirements and reinstatement of farmers’ qualified exemption. There’ll also be a finalized implementation schedule. Depending on how farm and processing operations are classified scale-wise, compliance deadlines will be phased in over the next 5 years. On a parallel track is the development of provisions for requisite food safety training for farmers.
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Obituary: Robin Ostfeld

by her sister Barbara

By Barbara ·

To state the obvious, Robin had a green thumb. I am not only referring to her skill regarding anything containing chlorophyll.

Robin understood about growing things of all kinds. She and Lou raised two splendid daughters, only one of whom reached her full height. And although randomness robbed Robin and Lisa of the complete harvests we all see as our birthright, Robin kept turning the earth over as long as she could. And over. She did not want help. Robin, my sister, was strong. Lou may be even stronger than that. And Sharon. Survivors, both of them.
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Eulogy, Robin Ostfeld

By Lou Johns ·

Robin Sue Ostfeld, mother, wife, organic farmer, agricultural research collaborator, constant reader, and orchid lover, died the morning of August 26th on the farm she and her husband, Llywolaf Johns, established in Lodi, New York nearly 30 years ago. Blue Heron Farm has become an institution in the Finger Lakes and beyond. Their produce, plants and flowers are enjoyed at the Ithaca Farmers Market; Greenstar Co-op; many local restaurants as well as Park Slope Food Co-op and Angelica Kitchen in New York City. Robin, a woman of incisive wit and conviction, was loved by those who knew her—friends, customers, col-leagues, and co-workers alike. She worked tirelessly on the farm, performing the daily tasks required by the season, and handled the business of the farm with an abundance of insight, generosity and creativity. Blue Heron Farm will continue to operate under the leadership of Lou and the current farm manager, Zach-ary Kaplan-Moss, supported by a committed crew of workers.
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