Boulder Vermicomposting

A visit with the Worm Ladies of Charlestown

August 17th, 2009

While on vacation in June, I had a chance to visit one of the Worm Ladies of Charlestown.  Lois was kind enough to show me and my fiancee’s family around.

Worm Ladies of Charlestown Logo

She has an integrated operation–growing rabbits and red wrigglers.  The rabbits Lois raises are sold for pets (her partner raises angoras and sells the hair, hence the domain name).  The redworms are sold by the pound, or in kits.  They also produce castings for sale to gardeners.  She mentioned that they have an industrial worm separator (purchased used from a fellow who used to sell castings), at her partner’s place, so I didn’t get to see the castings separation process.

Worm bin underneath rabbith hutch

Above is a rabbit hutch with a worm bin (the blue plastic bin).  Hay placed in the hutch for food and rabbit bedding falls into the worm bin, as does the rabbit poop and pee (I also noticed other vegetable and leafy matter, so there may be auxiliary feeding).  The redworms convert that waste product into more worms and castings–what great synergy!

However, it is not a totally sustainable operation–the ladies have found the best redworm bedding is coir from Sri Lanka (there are husks available from Mexico, but these are laced with salt).  Lois said they switched from peat moss to coir for bedding because “it is much easier to hydrate.  [It] is not as acidic as peat, [and is] easy to ship in a kit because of it being in block form.”

Coir that the Worm Ladies use

Lois said she used to keep the worms in cinder block squares under the rabbit hutches, but has converted to the rubbermaid bins because it is easier to bring them inside during the harsh winters.  She has a workspace where she keeps the worms during the winter, and does other various Worm Lady activities.

Winter worm storage and workspace

In addition to the bins underneath the rabbits, Lois also has standard compost bins, like mine, that she uses for extra worm habitat.  You can see her in front of these bins–she had about four that I could see.

In front of compost bins (extra worm habitat)

She also vermicomposted chicken manure, like Forest did in Hawaii, and mentioned that neither the rabbit manure nor the chicken poop smelled after the worms had been at it for 24 hours.

Lois also mentioned doing a lot of outreach–talking to home school groups and elementary school kids, and educating people in how worms can turn garbage into gardening gold.  She certainly did a fine job of showing us around her operation.

As far as the business end of the wormkeeping goes, Lois had no complaints.  The worm ladies incorporated in 2009, but have had tremendous demand for years (since 2003, when a newspaper interview sent her and her partner “reeling into business”), for both castings and worms.  She has done some exploring of other business models (eco tourism, bed and breakfast) but after looking at the numbers decided to focus on worms.

The Worm Ladies have sold redworms as far afield as Canada and Alaska (they had a request from Jamaica, but weren’t sure what import/export hurdles were present).  She guestimated they sell about 600 pounds of redworms a year.  They have a buyback program started, where they will pay you $5/lb for unseparated worms and $8/lb for separated worms–which sounds like a good intro into the vermiculture business.  (If this piques your interest, I’d contact them for more details.)

Inside a small kit

In addition to selling castings and worms by the pound, the worm ladies sell two different sizes of kits.  In the kit, they have created habitat in a plastic bin suited for redworms–just moist enough, aerated holes predrilled, and with just enough bedding.  They sell you the bin, instructions and an appropriate weight of worms, and you can use the bin to ‘test drive’ worm keeping with little fear of failure.  (She also mentioned wormkits.com.)

Larger Redworm Kits

(I’m doing the same thing with a shiitake mushroom kit).  This is an exciting product to me because it lowers the barrier to entry for worm keeping–instead of having to spend around $100 for a full worm composting system, you can use one of these kits to see if you enjoy it.

Outside of smaller worm kits

All in all, it was a pleasure to get a chance to meet someone who loved worms as much as Lois obviously does (she signed an email to me ‘Wormly, Lois’!).  Reforming the waste stream that is currently in place is not going to be easy, but education and business ventures like the Worm Ladies of Charlestown are part of the effort.

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