Vermiculture Farming

Basics

• Vermiculture farming is quickly becoming a popular hobby and small business venture. Anyone can do it, whether you have a simple worm bin under your kitchen sink or a large-scale operation. Basically you need a dark, ventilated container, bedding (wood chips, shredded paper or dried leaves), food waste or yard waste, and an army of red worms. Your worms will take your waste and turn it into nutrient rich compost.

Benefits

• The benefits of this hobby and business are that it recycles your kitchen and yard wastes that may have otherwise ended up in a landfill. Instead of rotting away in a landfill, your waste is devoured by red worms that then process it into one of the richest forms of compost. This gives you the opportunity to use a natural, organic and highly effective fertilizer on your plants and garden rather than resorting to chemical fertilizers. Therefore, you have a healthier garden and you contribute to efforts to put less toxins in the environment.

Considerations

• If you are interested in making your hobby a profitable one, you can use your vermiculture farm to create enough compost to begin selling it to local farmers and gardeners. You may have to invest in a larger number of worm bins and find a source of feed (such as manure), but your worms will do the rest of the work. Also, by mixing the vermicompost with river sand, stiff clay and bone meal, you can make your own potting soil to sell.

Potential

• In addition to selling the compost your worms create, you can also sell your excess worms. Many people are starting up their own worm bins and are in need of starter worms. Schools and other institutions are also potential worm buyers for vermiculture projects they may be starting. Your vermiculture farm can also double as a bait store, selling your extra red worms to the local fishermen.

Significance

• You may find that vermiculture farming is more of a passion than a booming business. Like any other business it may take quite some time before you are seeing any money from it, and it will not be a windfall of money. Word of mouth and actively seeking your customers (think farmer's markets, nurseries, landscapers) will help your vermiculture farm be more than a hobby. Meanwhile, even if you are not turning a profit, you are helping the environment and will always have dinner conversation.