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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Worm wranglers

Walla Walla college benefits from raising red wrigglers

Jean Arthur Down to Earth NW Correspondent
Barbara Newby has worms. About 200,000 red wigglers among four large bins are part of Newby’s Walla Walla Worm Works, a southeast Washington business that helps people learn how to use composting material and worms to create soil enhancement for gardening. As an independent worm breeder, Newby raises and sells Eisenia fetida, and also offers seminars in creating composting bins that result in worm castings for superb, nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. “Worm castings are super high in nutrients to feed plants,” says Newby, whose day job is in management. “I don’t look like a Worm Lady—I run a dental office!” She first became interested in composting with worms when her son conducted a backyard worm project about six years ago. “The oil in the castings is the nutrient plants need. It leaks out slowly into soil for plants vs. commercial plant food which acts too fast and isn’t as healthy for the plants.” Worm Fact: Vermicast, also called worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, produces vermicompost, and composting with worms is called vermicomposting. In the past five-and-a-half years, Newby has shipped red wigglers all over the region, primarily to gardeners, schools and home schoolers. She has also sold bags of worms at farmers’ markets. Bags sell for $20 for a pound, and “usually, there are 1,000 worms per pound although I don’t count them.” Most often, she sells larger quantities, like 5,000 worms at a time. Newby packs the wigglers in peat moss for delivery—yes, UPS does deliver worms. She says the wigglers reproduce quickly, so that if in optimum conditions, composting worm farmers can double the population every three months. Newby teaches worm-composting classes to schools, Scouting groups and colleges, and plans to offer a workshop in Spokane in spring 2013—dates to be determined. “While teaching these workshops, I’ve found that I have a passion for teaching,” Newby says. “I’m currently the education coordinator for the composting program at Walla Walla Community College.” Two years ago, she gave her first composting seminar at Whitman College in Walla Walla, where, she says, “The students were really excited about composting food waste from the dorm cafeterias.” Worm fact: A worm eats half its weight in each day. Each week, two tons of discarded food heads to Dumpsters outside Whitman College’s cafeterias. It’s a waste, literally, said the students, who last year, took to heart the Campus Climate Challenge and formed Whitman’s Industrial Composting Working Group. Campus Climate Challenge is a national effort to make college campuses carbon-neutral. Today, students are farming worms, disposing of food waste and creating nutrient-rich organic compost for the 60-acre campus’ flowerbeds thanks to the red worms from Walla Walla Worm Works. With a potato fork—resembling a bent pitchfork—students like junior Lydia Bailey feed the 5,000 worms, twice a week. The mix of food scraps from potato peels, eggshells, coffee grounds and bread is combined with strips of newspaper to avoid compaction, she explains. “We churn the compost by slowly flipping the whole thing,” explains Bailey, an environmental sciences and biology major from Birmingham, Ala. “We take the 10 to 15 gallons of waste food from one of the dining halls each week, chop it into small pieces then spread it in the composter, the Worm Wigwam.” The $7,000 Worm Wigwam is a 5-by-8 foot box, 4 feet deep, manufactured by Sustainable Agricultural Technologies of Cottage Grove, Ore., which creates sustainable solutions for the biological management of agriculture and organic waste processing. “We have our vermicomposting worm bins in colleges and universities all over the country,” says Jacob Harvey, agronomist for Sustainable Agricultural Technologies. “University of Washington, Penn State, Oregon State University,” he says are just a few of the dozens of educational institutions using the Worm Wigwams. “Our largest client is the Charlotte, North Carolina, airport that uses a 96-foot-long bin and four 48-foot bins to compost restaurant waste.” The Worm Wigwam module is made from two-inch tubular steel, which supports a grate system capable of holding two tons of material. Each 8-foot section is built with a galvanized, heavy welded wire grate, powder coated components, interior rot-proof moisture barrier, and 5/16-inch stainless-steel winch cables for added strength. The Worm Wigwam needs to be indoors in a heated environment for winter use where temperatures dip below freezing, so Whitman College’s Industrial Composting Working Group, convinced the college to build a worm shed just outside of Jewitt Dining Hall. The “Worm Health Bio Interns” like Bailey make sure that the shed maintains a minimum temperature no less than 40 degrees F by using space heaters, while aiming for optimal temperatures of 60-85 degrees F, plus the right amount of moisture. “We hauled buckets of water to add to the compost mix to keep it moist,” she says, pulling a worm from the Wigwam. “The worms are healthy when they are red like this one. You don’t want grey worms, that’s unhealthy.” Worm Fact: Worms breathe through their skin. What’s truly amazing is that the vermicomposting process does not reek of rotting organic material. On a 70-degree fall afternoon in Walla Walla, the wafting scent emanating from inside the composting shed is that of moist newsprint and garden soil. No hint of mold, decay or rancid food was detectable. Worms gobble up half their body weight each day, according to the Worm Health Bio Interns. Populations double every three to four months so that the wigwam soon will process 100-120 pounds of food weekly, churning it into compost that will be used to fertilize campus gardens. After four to five months of adding food service refuse, shredded paper and water, and students churning and checking the worms, the compost fertilizer is ready for flowerbeds. Whitman’s landscape crew will disperse the vermicompost in flowerbeds around the campus. Worm fact: Earthworms can live 15 years. Worm farmers like Newby raise red wigglers because these worms can survive in compost bins. “Earth worms don’t like to be contained and will die in two weeks inside bins. Earth worms are not composting worms,” she said. “Red wigglers are best because they love to be in the containers.” Even with the right worms and the best tools, Bailey said problems can happen. “We had a catastrophic event and lost 30,000 worms last year because the compost materials were not mixed thoroughly. The worms wound up at the bottom of the Wigwam.” They fell through the grate and died on the floor. Tragic, but the students learn much from the disaster. Now, says Bailey, the students stir more often, paying close attention to temperatures inside the composting hut, and attend to moisture levels. The students also show local school kids how to use food scraps in their own composts. “This year we had three presentations for Green Park elementary school,” says junior Matthew Atkins, the college program’s outreach intern. “The students came to the Industrial Composting Center, and we showed them how it worked, let them play with the worms, taught them what the worms could eat and why it was important to compost.” College students demonstrate how anyone can take a 5-gallon bucket, add 250 worms and with casual stirring, a few strips of newspaper and of course food scraps, in a few months, have happy flowerbeds of worm castings. “Now, we want to have a small compost set up in all the Whitman fraternities,” adds Bailey. “It’s easy.” Worm fact: A worm that’s chopped in half does not become two worms—only the end with the head survives. Newby says that it’s fun to see youngsters’ reactions to worms. “At first they aren’t so sure about touching the worms,” she said. “Pretty quickly though, kids love getting their hands in among the worms. You stick your hand in among 500 worms, and they are surprisingly warm.” She sells the wigglers as fast as they reproduce. When the worms simply slime each other, they produce eggs. Each egg has about 25 worms. Each worm has both male and female parts, yet still need other worms for reproduction. “If you have a big pile of grass clippings in your yard and throw 2,000 worms into it, in a couple months, you’ll have worm casings and usable compost,” she says. “It works really well.” Worm Fact: In 1881, Charles Darwin said: “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.” Ultimately, the Worm Lady Barbara Newby hopes that everyone has worms too.