Vermiculture: The Economic Benefits of Creepy Crawlies

They may be slimy but worms play an important role in making gardens grow. This article by Winston Ross (which was originally published in the Ashland Daily Tidings) takes a look at how one Oregon farm benefits from the rich compost that worms produce and from the growing demand for the worms themselves.

In the shadow of Skinner Butte, just a few yards west of a playground along the Willamette River, sits a rectangular box in the patchwork of community plots that comprise the Skinner City Farm.

The box looks like a truck trailer, but with a winch at each end, and a grate that covers the top, secured by a padlock. The lock is there to prevent thieves from robbing the farm of a writhing mass of creatures that can turn table scraps into “gold,” in the words of the nonprofit farm’s coordinator, Jan VanderTuin.Those creatures are worms — red wigglers, to be precise — and there are thousands of them chowing through compost gathered up from area markets and restaurants, turning that food waste into castings that are about as premium a soil as money can buy.

It’s just composting — vermicomposting, as it’s known — but this form of it can produce usable soil in about a third the time taken by the giant black compost tumblers that also occupy the Skinner farm, and knowledge of this little secret appears to be spreading, thanks in part to the ongoing economic recession.

Skinner farm also sells the soil-producing worms — though technically it’s a “suggested donation” of $15 — for a Nancy’s Yogurt container of wrigglers. Last year, VanderTuin said, the volume nearly doubled, from the typical 30 or 40 customers to about 60.

He attributes that growth in part to Eugene residents’ love of using organic waste wisely. Or, as Oregon State University extension horticultural agent Ross Penhallegon puts it, “Around here, composting is king.”

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