What Are The Benefits of Worm Farming? A Personal (and a bit of a scienctific) Take on Worm Farming, From a Worm Farmer Herself.

I’ve listened to a handful of podcasts, skimmed through some blog articles and read and re-read 3 books on Worm Farming. The question I find myself asking as I review the findings isnt, ‘What are the benefits of worm farming?’, but ‘What aren’t the benefits of worm farming?’. The answer is that there are many benefits to starting a worm farm. I’m going to mention some scientific, as well as some personal benefits that I have experienced after becoming a worm farmer. What benefits has worm farming offered to you? I love hearing personal experiences, so please leave them in the comment box below!

The benefits of worm farming that I’m going to mention here are more personal, but in fact backed by research.

If you haven’t yet started a worm farm, I encourage you to read this blog post about starting a worm bin, from scratch, out of a plastic storage tote! In my opinion, it’s the most environmentally friendly way to start because you can use a tote that you already have, or reach out in your buy nothing groups for a storage bin that someone is looking to recycle. Use shredded paper, for the worms’ bedding and your kitchen scraps from this week’s dinner and wallah! Welcome to the wonderful world of worm farming where we recycle our food waste and restore the guts of our gardens aka our soil. I go into more detail, in this blog post.

side note || I’ll be using worm castings and black gold interchangeably.

#1 Worm Farming Reduces Household Waste.

So let’s get started by jumping into the first and, what I would consider, most important benefit of worm farming. It’s that worm farming reduces waste that would ordinarily end up in landfills. Kitchen scraps and paper goods are in every household, restaurant and business throughout the world. These once organic components become waste and when broken down in landfills, cause harm to the environment and because our health depends on that of a healthy environment, our health also suffers. In land fills, the breakdown of organic materials happens in an anaerobic manner because there is no air flow to the waste. Methane gas is then produced and sent into the atmosphere. According to Rhonda Sherman of The Worm Farmer’s Handbook, “Methane gas is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.” (p. 8). In addition to the greenhouse gas that’s released from landfills, the liquid that’s released from our food waste is called leachate and is a pollutant. If the leachate is next to a metal can, it can also excrete heavy metals from the can, which then can leach into waterways, soil and groundwater. (The Worm Farmer’s Handbook, 8).

Worms will eat our garbage and if you head to this blog post — https://thewildbungalow.com/the-blo/2024/5/21/whatdowormseat-my-red-wiggler-composting-worms-eisenia-fetida

I list what I feed my worms and how we’ve significantly reduced waste as a growing, American family. Worm farming has been an absolute labor of love and although I may not be changing the planet as a whole, I hope that this blog post encourages others to start a worm bin and reap their own personal benefits. If you or someone you know suffers from eco-anxiety, encourage them to start a worm bin. Putting food waste into the bin and watching the worms recyle it into black gold, is very therapeutic and can turn anxieties into action!

“We can not all do great things but we can do small things with great love.”

- Mother Teresa

When I started worm farming a few years ago, I didn’t know that it was considered ‘black gold’. It’s called black gold because there is no other soil amendment like it. It’s contains humic acid and humus, which soil needs to retain water and plants need for growth and survival. It also contacts certain bacteria and fungi that help protect the plants roots from disease. It is also a natural pest repellent, according to organiccontrol.com — “Earthworm castings contain chitinase (“KITE-ten-ace”), an enzyme that dissolves chitin. Many pest insects, such as whiteflies, are made of chitin. So when chitinase gets sucked up by plant roots and pests try to ingest the sap, their insides are dissolved and they die.”. It’s basically a living and breathing organism full of life in which we could study for the rest of our lives. Once you start to study bacteria, you realize there are many, both good and bad. Before embarking on my exploration into worm farming, I knew I wanted to reduce our waste. It happened because my daughter and I read about waste in a children’s book called, ‘What a Waste’. The title goes along with the content and clearly teaches us that waste is an issue.

#2 Black Gold is a Gardener’s Secret Weapon.

We had been on a minimalism journey, so bringing less ‘trash’ (I mean stuff) into the house was the initial goal and now we are not only able to reduce our household food and carbon waste, we are now able to garden with our black gold. Which brings me to the second benefit of worm farming I want to mention — Black Gold is every gardeners secret weapon!! We initially had our worm bins in our garden, which according to Rhonda Sherman is not a good idea because leachate can leak out into your garden and cause things like ecoli to leach out onto your edibles, which in turn can cause illness. She also mentions that it could cause the plants to grow bigger and stronger. We experienced the latter effects of the leachate. Because we had holes, on the bottom of our bins, to release any leachate, we also had worms decomposing organic matter and aerating our soil. When we would water around the bins, we were watering into the dirt any worm castings that had been created towards the bottom of the bin. Rhonda Sherman also mentions that if there were contaminants in the decomposing food that were given to worms, such as ecoli, the worms were able to recycle it into beneficial components. These worms will never cease to amaze me. So giving your garden its fullest potential would mean allowing your worms to recycle your garbage and create black gold that you can add to your garden soil, allowing life to flourish and in reaping the physiological and psychological benefits of growing your own flowers and/or edibles.

#3 I Am Spending More Time Outdoors, In Nature.

The third and probably a more personal benefit of having worm castings has been the reward of being consistent and with consistency caring for my worms has come the consistency of spending more time outside. I am grateful to my husband, because he gets outside with me on the weekends to harvest the castings. Although he does it for me, I think we both benefit from the joys that Vitamin D offers, animal husbandry and growing our garden to its fullest potential. Not knowing, at all, what we were doing initially to having pounds and pounds of castings has been the coolest family science experiment!

#4 I Experience Joy While Worm Farming — See Research on Mychobacterium Vaccae.

Soil science is very cool! I knew that soil had mychobacterium vaccae in it which when ingested, by eating fresh fruit or vegetables out of a garden or while foraging, could cause someone to experience joy, but I didn’t know that this bacteria could be found in vermicast! I have experienced this joy and feeling of contentment, while sifting castings. I had mentioned to my husband that it can be a few factors leading to these feelings, such as working hard, being outdoors, using our hands to provide a backyard pollinator friendly environment for insects and birds. In turn, leading to a nature study for our family. Not to mention how nature is therapeutic and offers a full sensory experience. So benefit number four of worm farming is mycobacterium vaccae and the nature component to having a bountiful bungalow garden — the nature component deserves its own blog post, so stay tuned for that one!

A bit about the bacteria that elicits joy — a blog post I came across that links the research states, “Mycobacterium vaccae, can trigger the release of seratonin in our brains, helping to us to feel…well…happier!”. If this stuff excites you like it does me, you can read that blog post here! Speaking of bacteria, as we alter our day to day activities that include gardening, worm farming and being outdoors, we in turn alter our microbiome. Stay tuned for a future blog post where I mention the components of the castings and how they can actually make us healthier human beings, by enriching soil and in turn, enriching the quality of the things we grow.

#5 Trying Something New Has Offered Personal Growth.

The fifth and final benefit I’ll mention is the learning component. To be honest, I was afraid of insects, especially worms, but after gaining knowledge about eisenia fetida (our red wiggler population), I learned that not only will they not bite me, they are changing the, they are thriving in an environment of decomposition and they actually are here on Earth for a very important purpose.

Learning new things and helping the environment has offered me feelings of gratitude & belonging. Hard work has offered me perspective & joy.

Stay tuned for our curriculum that will teach you all about red wiggler worms and vermicomposting.

Happy Farming!!

Waynna

further study + all my thanks to these publications | ‘The Worm Farmer’s Handbook’, by Rhonda Sherman | ‘Worm Farming’, by Dion Rosser | ‘Why Should We Vermicompost and How Do we Do it?’ — an easy to digest podcast

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