By Miles Shuper
Visalia
- It's not among the top crops in Tulare County, but it's inching
up.
We're talking worms, especially Red Wigglers (Eisenia fetida). And not just fish bait. Worms play a key role in recycling organic material (anything that was once alive and is now dead) and eat about three times their weight in a week. One mature worm can produce 96 worms in six months, so it's obvious that a small operation can become large in a short time.
Visalia-based Happy D Ranch Worm Farm may not be well known locally but over 15 years it's gained more than 10,000 customers, says Dorothy Benoy who purchased the business in 1998 from founder Glenn Dembroff.
Dembroff formed the company in 1995 after he won a Can-O-Worms compost bin in a raffle.
Benoy bought the business as an economics project for her then 13-year-old son. The business subsequently helped put her daughter through college. Benoy continues to sell worms, worm casting (worm manure) and worm bins through the on-line Happy D Worm Farm. Customers include people interested in recycling, gardeners, fishermen, municipalities and teachers.
One of those teachers is Julie Domena, a Mt. Whitney High science teacher, Benoy's long-time best friend who now “farms” Red Wigglers on leased land near Visalia along the St. John's River not far from Cutler Park.
After finally being convinced by Benoy that worm farming would be worthwhile and an environmentally beneficial endeavor, Domena “planted her initial crop” of worms, a move she now admits was a good one. Benoy's main supplier was a Sacramento farm of Red Wigglers. Now Happy D Worm Farm has two main sources, one very close to home.
European Nightcrawlers, sold by Happy D, are shipped from North Carolina. Another major product for the local company is the Worm Factory ® 360, a ready-to-use composting bin Benoy says provides the most environmentally efficient and economic way to “not waste our waste” while creating great compost.
It doesn't take much land to operate a good-size worm farm, even one which during a good spring month ships more than 100 pounds of worms a week. The biggest order was 1,500 pounds, Benoy said. Average shipments range from one to five pounds. The most common sales are two-pound cartoons which go for about $55 including shipping. Each of the Sacramento and Visalia area farms cover about two acres each producing at least 1,000 pounds of worms. There are about 1,000 worms to a pound.
“We've shipped worms to people all over the United States, except Hawaii, and shipped worm bins all over the world,” Benoy said.
Both Benoy and Domena are staunch advocates of composting with worms, referred to generally as vermicomposting, and are quick to recommend home owners use composting instead of garbage disposals or simply tossing organic material into the trash can. Disposals use water to carry organic material into the waste water system and landfills are not the best dumping grounds, they point out.
Domena's farming enterprise thrives on manure which is “donated” from area horse ranches and others owners.
The worms do their thing in long rows (windrows) of material, basically manure, spread four to 10 feet wide by one to two feet deep. The planted worms migrate toward fresher feed added to the windrows. As worms continue to migrate laterally through the windrows they leave rich castings in their wake. Castings generally are sold to landscapers, gardeners and growers. Worm castings, Benoy says, “are the best fertilizers you can buy.”
Castings are sold by the pound or even pickup load.
Domena uses a mesh screen tumbler to separate the castings. The castings are stockpiled for delivery or shipment.
Although there is little, if any visible action on the outside of the windrows, which generally are several hundred feet long, a pitchfork full of material comes alive as the worms, which don't like sunlight, squirm and burrow for cover. Red Wigglers do their best work a foot to 18 inches from the surface.
And that seems only natural for an industry which has more going for it than meets the eye.
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