Scaling It Back a Bit
After last summer’s experiment with selling red wiggler compost worms and vermicompost at the farmers market, we decided to scale back our hobby business and return it to just a hobby.  We believe strongly in compost worms as a way to turn food scraps to rich compost, but the market we were at was just too small for what is still a very niche product.  While maybe one out of every two people at a farmers market are there to buy produce, perhaps 1 in 50 would be interested in buying compost worms or vermicompost.  I think only a large market like the Saturday Burlington or Montpelier farmers markets would really work out.

Worms Survived a Vermont Winter Outdoors!
Because we already had a significant humidity/mold issue going in our basement (from moisture, not worms), we decided not to move our large compost worm bins into the basement for the winter.  Small 2-4 square ft., family-sized worm bins like most people have would have been fine, but we had two bins that are 12+ square feet each.

Outdoor compost worm bin, 6 ft. x 2 ft.

Without a garage or other semi-heated space to put them in, we were forced to just overwinter our worms outdoors.  I overturned the large bins so that the compost would be directly in contact with the ground to moderate the temperature a bit, and put the wooden bins overtop to provide some shelter.  I really didn’t expect the worms to make it through (conventional wisdom says red wigglers can’t handle freezing temperatures).  There they sat under the snow all winter, and we even had temperatures as low as -30F a few January/February nights .

In early March when I went back and checked on them, I was really surprised to find live worms in the parts of the compost that wasn’t frozen!  In April after temperatures weren’t so frigid, I set the bins back upright and re-filled them with the worms and compost.  There definitely weren’t as many as we had last Fall (many could have simply escaped to the ground and leaf litter), but there were many alive.  I soon started finding lots of worm cocoons, so they’re obviously breeding again.

Worm Compost as Seed Starter
When we were starting seeds for our vegetable garden in March, we used vermicompost as perhaps 1/4 of our soil-less mix.  The bacteria and enzymes in worm compost are supposed to beneficial in suppressing fungus when germinating seeds, in addition to being a great nutrient source. Our seedlings all got off to a great start, so maybe we can credit the vermicompost for some of that!

Summer 2009 Plans for Wormy Acres
We won’t be regularly attending the Burlington South End Farmers Market this summer, but may make a few “guest” appearances.  We’re mostly scaling our vermicomposting back to a “hobby” this summer, with the goal of producing a lot of worm compost to add to our gardens.

However, there’s still a lot of interest in vermicomposting in Vermont, and we might do a bulk order from a worm wholesaler a few times this summer in order to sell worms at a reasonable price.  Buying worms in 10lb or greater quantities lets us sell them at $25/lb for a small profit, which is at least $5/lb less than other online mail-order sources.  Please contact us on our contact page for more information.

Thanks for visiting, and happy summer worm farming!

Since we’re still ramping up our vermicomposting, we had to buy four trailer loads of Intervale compost for our gardens (not sure we’ll ever get big enough to sell compost by the cubic yard).  There’s an amazing difference in how fine and completely-decomposed vermicompost is when compared to traditional compost.  I’ll post some photos soon, or come check us out at the Burlington South End Farmers Market Wednesday afternoons!

As I mentioned last week, the initial shipment wasn’t exactly smooth. The worm farmer I bought them from is kindly sending me an extra 15lbs of worms this week to make up for it. They’ll be joining their red wiggler friends Wednesday or so. Hopefully that’ll give me enough worms to keep up with the 50+ pounds of food waste Outer Space generates each week. It takes a little bit for compost worms to settle in and get down to the business of vermicomposting, but I think I’ll have enough to keep up once these reinforcements arrive.

Less than two weeks until the brand new Burlington South End Farmers Market starts up at 3:30pm on Wednesday, June 4th: http://southendfarmersmarket.wordpress.com . The worms can’t wait for their grand debut! Check out the growing list of vendors (others still coming) at http://southendfarmersmarket.wordpress.com/market-vendors/.

Cheers, Jase

Over the next couple days I’ll get them set up for real, and start feeding them all the yummy food scraps from Outer Space Cafe here in South Burlington. For now, they’re hanging in a large kiddie pool, getting used to this drizzly Vermont weather!