Wednesday, January 28

Chuck hasn't done anything with the worm farm the last 2 days. He also tunes pianos and he's had to put that hat on yesterday and today. He'll be back at it tomorrow.

Sunday, January 25

Wow, finally a day off. Yesterday I was gone most of the day and Chuck had Makiya out helping him. They were able to get all the left over bedding from the harvest back into the beds into the new shed, they also cut pvc pipe in half and attached it to the wood stands to make gutters for the worm tea that runs out the bottom of the beds after we water. The tea is collected into buckets and then when those are full we dump them into big garbage cans to store the tea. When it's time for the farmer's market we bottle the tea and sell it. It's a great source of nutrients, as well as, a great pesticide.

Athough it rained pretty hard yesterday, it didn't seem as muddy out there as it did the day before. That was nice, because when our dirt (which is really red clay) gets wet you sink up to your ankles!

We got a call yesterday from one of our regular customers. He's ready for his annual 200 lbs. He raises organic tomatoes and uses our castings for starting his plants in his green house. The first year he used our castings, his starts were ready for planting way earlier than normal. He was thrilled with our product. Here is an article about his farm. (The link at the bottom to his website doesn't work.)

January 22nd

Oh no! Chuck was walking out to the worm shed this morning and slipped in our yucky messy mud (it's been raining). He hurt his wrist, but I must say, he's still out working, even though he's hurting pretty bad!

Wednesday, January 21st

Today Chuck spent a considerable amount of time insulating the new shed. We don't want all the heat escaping out the roof! We are quite excited too, he's finished the first set of screening on the castings. We have a huge order to fill in March and we've been stressed that we wouldn't be able to fill it (1 ton!) and still have castings left over for the Farmer's Market Chuck goes to during the summer. But, he filled the 1 ton bag and we have 1/2 ton left and our new beds have enough worms that we should be able to harvest at least that much again in 3-4 months.

Tuesday, January 20

Chuck delivered an aquarium full of worm bedding and worms to Shayla's class at school today. The teacher will be using it in their science class. We've provided worms for several school classes the past couple of years. The kids bring in left over lunch stuff to feed them, and they take turn watering them etc. The kids always love caring for the worm bed, and it teaches them how composting with worms really works.

Monday, January 19th

I've got a few pictures and a video for you today. This fall Chuck has worked hard on building our first new worm shed. He's got it built, but as you can see we still need to get it sided. At least it's able to hold our worms now.


This is a row of beds in our new shed. We got these new beds set up a couple of weeks ago, but until Saturday there was no heat in the new shed. Now there is heat, the beds are thawed and we will be adding worms to each of these beds tonight.


On Saturday, Chuck started harvesting the beds we have in the garage. This picture is of our worm casting harvester. Chuck shovels in everything that was in a worm bed. Then it get spun and the castings fall through to the ground, newspaper, and worms and rocks, etc, fall to the end, where one of the kids push everything off into containers at the end. We will then sort through that stuff my hand getting the worms out and they will go back in fresh bedding towards the end of the week (we hope).

Here's a little video of Chuck and Makiya havesting.

In the Past

Like I said, we've been farming for 4 years now. We've learned alot and changed alot of things over the years. Here are some pictures from April, 2007. I will be out this week taking current ones, but it will give you an idea of what goes into producing the worm castings.

This first pictures is my husband, Chuck and our youngest daughter, Shayla, mixing the worm bedding. They had to mix the shredded newspaper, grass clippings and, manure with water before adding it to the worm bed.

We transformed our 2 car garage into a worm shed. We set up these beds for our worms and the garage is heated in the winter and air conditioned in the summer. Worms bred best at about 60-75 degrees. The bedding that Chuck and Shayla are mixing in the above picture is put into these beds and then worms are added. In 3-5 months the worms have changed the paper to poop. Each container will have about 80 lbs of castings in it at the end of the 3-5 months.

This is our son Joshua. He was 2 1/2 in this picture and he was finally not afraid to touch the worms.

This next picture is of worm capsules (eggs). This is really up close. Most capsules are the size of a nerd candy (have you seen those?) Each capsule will have between 2-20 baby worms hatch. They take 2-3 weeks to hatch. The green capsules are new, and the redish ones are getting ready to hatch.

This picture is of two worms mating. They have both sets of sex organ, so they will both lay a fertilized egg capsule.

Starting in 2007 we particpate in the annual Natural Resource Fair put on in the area. We meet with 100's of students as well as adults each year and show them how to use worms for composting. Yes, the girls say, ewww gross and the boys want to dig in and find the worms we bring.

Welcome!

I've been blogging for a long time, but that has mostly been scrapbooking and family stuff. I've decided, since it interests so many people, to set up a new blog about our family worm farm.

We live in central Utah and we have been raising Red Wiggler worms for 4 years now. This is a fantastic form of organic composting and recycling.

Worm castings (which is worm poop), is nature's fertilizer. As you follow the blog you'll be able to learn how we turn newspaper, horse manure and grass clippings into a very rich compost that can used on house plants, vegetable gardens, flower gardens, lawns, shrubs and trees. It is pretty amazing stuff!

Also, never hesitate to ask questions in the comment section.

Once again, welcome to my new blog.