Redworms - The Answer to Garbage
Disposal
An article by Dan Corbin
Redworms are a
consumable product. Most successful growers
will agree that to have consistent sales, if this is
your reason for growing, your product should be
consumable. As the population of the world
grows, every year there are more gardeners and
anglers to buy worms. Even though new growers
start growing redworms each year, the supply is
never enough to satisfy the demand, especially
during the peak spring season. If you don't
live near a good fishing area, it doesn't make much
difference. As many live worms are sold by
mail-order than are delivered in person to the
consumer. Sometimes bait and tackle stores buy
their live bait through the mail. Often times,
the buyer and grower, who may have done business
with each other for years, have never met each other
in person.
If your don't have an
interest in sales as a reason for growing redworms,
then this should be of interest to you. There
are more new growers in the United States who obtain
a supply of redworms for indoor worm bins than any
other category. The uses of the redworms are
mainly for consuming table and garden waste, with no
idea of resale of the worms. Gardening
magazines regularly feature articles on the benefits
of using redworms for composting and soil
improvement. Even our national White House in
Washington, D.C., is now beginning to compost yard
and garden waste. Because redworms are natural
tillers, millions of redworms are put to work
tilling and aerating compost piles and garden soils.
In addition, worms deposit nutrient rich castings in
the root areas of the plants.
Scientists are
discovering that vermicompost (compost reduced by
worms) is a bettter fertilizer than regular compost,
and many countries are vermicomposting on a large
scale, not just garden and kitchen waste, but
industrial waste as well.
Redworm castings are
sold by the bag to nurseries and individual
gardeners, and make an excellent choice as an
organic plant fertilizer and soil conditioner.
Thousands of gardeners buy worms and castings each
year to add to gardens and compost piles.
Frequently, the worms are bought from seed and
flower catalogs. Often the seed and flower
companies do not raise redworms themselves, but mail
the order to a grower who "drop ships" the redworms
directly to the buyer. Look in flower and seed
catalogs for the classified section of sporting and
gardening magazines and you will see ads for live
worms. Often growers advertise a few times and
then, after establishing their customer base, never
need to advertise again. They have ALL the
customers they can supply.
The redworm does a
remarkable job of recycling organic waste.
With landfills brimming to capacity, concerned
communities all over the world are now beginning to
try to reduce solid waste using vermicomposting.
It's a great solution! The community reduces
solid waste (which takes up space in the landfill)
and, in return, gets nutrient rich compost to use on
the gardens instead of chemical fertilizer. A
few enlightened city governments have started
furnishing to their residents small bins to be used
to compost kitchen and yard waste. Small
backyard vermicomposting bins can be used by almost
every household to reduce solid waste. Small
indoor worm bins, built on legs, can reduce solid
waste easily with no odor at all.
Home composting is
good for the garden, good for our planet, and saves
space in the landfill. Sustainable agriculture
is the goal of many researchers world wide. As
more businesses and private citizens become aware of
the benefits of vermicomposting, the demand for
redworms to be used in composting systems may become
as great as the demand for fish bait. |
Redworms