Daily life as a worm farmer

What is a typical day for a typical red worm farmer? That would be hard for me to know provably because I doubt that there is a typical worm farmer. Me and most of my colleague each do things very different, but I can tell you how my typical day goes.

You would think that a lot of my time would be spent managing the actual worm farm, but in reality I spend a lot of my time on the computer and phone answering emails and phone calls. To be honest I miss a lot of phone calls, but I do answer direct emails usually within 24 hours. Sometimes there is just no way for me to answer the phone. Everyday I try to do something online to get people interested in vermicomposting. That could be anything from writing blog post to answering questions on forums. Facebook is becoming an important resource for me to convey information and interest to people interested in vermicomposting. Lately, I have been working on making regular video post as well.

If it is a day we need to harvest red worms then me and at least one other person will go and harvest worms in the morning before it gets hot. After that the worms will need feeding. At least once a week the worm beds need turning with a pitchfork and this is quite a chore. Spot checks are taken every day to see the conditions of the worms. When doing a spot check I like to see how many worms are in an area, check for proper moisture, see if they are laying a good number of egg capsules, check for bedding temperature and compactness as well. It is always important for me to know about how many worms I have in the beds. If I start running low then something has to be done immediately or we could be out of red worms in short order. Thankfully we have not had that issue as of recent and our worms are breeding nicely.

Usually I also try and spend some time researching new ideas and trying to figure better ways of doing things. Every time we add a new red worm bed it is different and better than the older ones. Several times the improvement were so much that we would retrofit the old beds with the new improvements. Ultimately I plan to use the knowledge I have gained to help farmers and communities in third world countries. It will be exciting to start our first overseas project for sure. As for now I have no specific plans or dates set, just a head full of ideas.