The Homely Scientist

Yeah I know lots of people think earthworms are yucky, but they are essential to plants and good soil.  The cool thing is that you can have worms in your kitchen chomping away at your veggie waste and all the while making kick-butt fertilizer for your garden!  It’s called vermiculture.  I had a worm bin for a while and it was pretty successful for a while (I got it and the worms from these folks), I had trouble keeping the stuff moist and such.  I think I bit off more than I could chew.

Well, worm poop is big business you know.  I’ve seen it on Dirty Jobs (Discovery Channel) and this bit from Business Opportunities:

Tom Szaky is passionate about worm poop. So passionate that he dropped out of Princeton to start Terracycle, a company that sells worm poop. Vermicomposting is the process by which earthworms eat, digest and excrete castings (aka worm poop). Water is mixed with the worm castings to produce a nitrogen rich ‘tea’ prized by gardeners who believe the mixture makes plants grow faster and healthier than chemical fertilizers. Source: Business Opportunities Weblog | Niche Biz: Worm Poop

Terracycle is doing something awesome.  Recycling pop bottles and making organic fertilizer!  What could be better?  Unfortunately the Scotts company (MiracleGrow) is suing them.

If you’re interested in vermiculture a quick Google search will find folks in your area to get supplies.  I’m thinking maybe finding an apartment-sized set up for myself.  Why not.  I can just give the fertilizer away.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 9:16 am and is filed under Jedi Knights of Science, Science at home, Science experiments to try, Science for Kids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.