Kelowna Worm Lady WOW's 'Em


Lynda Schmidt works hard at her World of Worms (WOW) farm on Glenmore Road, Kelowna, but in spite of the strenuous physical labour, her enthusiasm for the wiggly critters just increases. While she shovels all day to keep up with the 85 bins of African Nightcrawlers in her barn she is thinking up new products and new ways to share with local children and adults who have not had the good fortune to be intimate with worms.

She held a Gardeners' Festival on Earth Day, complete with entertainment and composting workshops, and a scary event with a haunted house for Halloween. She teaches visiting classes about the anatomy, life cycle, reproduction and value of worms and is open for farm tours from April on. "It's the joy of the place that led to the teaching," she explains. "I want to say 'You've gotta see this!'"

Schmidt wants people to know that worms eat rot and bacteria and leave behind PH neutral castings that are full of beneficial microbes and enzymes. Not that her worms eat rot. They are fed a blend of screened black humic peat and volcanic ash, blended with a mix of four grains. She mixes it to a dough consistency because worms will not eat raw food. "They are spoiled," she said. "I make them a porridge."

She heats her barn through the floor to a temperature of 75 to 85 degrees, which is where these tropical wigglers "perform the best." Everyday she parts 25-pound "Fear Factor balls," comprised of 300 worms per pound. Castings, eggs, babies and worms are sorted with a drum and screens and the worms are restarted with fresh food. 85 bins create three tons of pure castings per week and the process from feeding to pure castings takes two weeks.

Most worm eggs are lime green, but African Nightcrawler eggs are black & shiny so are hard to find. In prime conditions they'll hatch in six hours, but they can last through the winter until that occurs.

Schmidt's customers are mostly organic growers. They buy the castings because they are like "time released vitamins for plants." According to her they are an organic source of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium and magnesium that is safe and doesn't burn the plants. The enzyme produced - Chitnase - has the ability to make the plants stronger so they are more resistant to insects and disease. Because they absorb ten times their weight in water they improve water retention also.

"People are sick and tired of having poison on their lawns," said Schmidt. "They want to fertilize organically. Ten litres per 100 square feet of lawn and you end up mowing less, with a bright green lawn."

Schmidt warns that not all vermi-compost will have the same qualities, depending upon what the worms are fed. Some are fed sewer waste, but are incapable of processing the heavy metals or antibiotics in it. "It's the other stuff put into the system that makes it scary," she said. "Keep it off what you're going to eat."

Although her process goes beyond the use of worms for recycling Schmidt points to places like Australia and Thailand, where they are using Red Wigglers for that purpose and says Canada still has a lot to learn. She would like to see consistent organic standards in this country and eventually vermi-composting and operations like hers in every city.

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Brewing Up Great Grass

Schmidt and a scientist partner, Anton Wytenburg, have created a new company called Turf Ecology Compost Tea Company. They have been researching recipes for specific purposes and are very excited about the results.

Their primary product at this point is brewed for lawns and turf for the purpose of reducing chemical applications, eliminating the need for aeration and de-thatching and reducing water consumption, mowing and gas emissions.

A live aerobic culture is created by aerating a mixture of worm castings, Yucca extract, kelp and other microbial source materials for 48 hours, during which time the microbe population has been doubling every 20 minutes. The resulting "tea" is applied within four to six hours, re-inoculating the turf and root zone and accelerating the soil eco-system.

"Before chemical companies dominated the industry organic gardeners used different recipes with different herbs and minerals," said Schmidt. "This is a hobby right now. My farming friends get way more out of a little acreage using it."

She points to the pioneering work of Dr. Elaine Ingram of the Soil Foodweb, whose ideas have led to 10,000 acre crops in Lethbridge, Alberta using tea to spray with instead of chemicals.

Lynn Dewing