Vancouver Food Network

One of many unsung heroes of our food supply is the redworm.  Doug Knippel is giving the redworm its full respect and teaching people how those wiggly little creatures are part of the important chain that ends at our dinner table. “It's called vermicompost,” Knippel said, “and this idea works because Mother Nature created it. Before us ‘Intelligent Humans’ started to throw chemicals on the ground to make things green, old Mother Nature was already giving us the perfect process to improve our style of living instead of creating giant piles of waste and contaminating our soil. Redworms are Mother Nature’s underground muscle that instinctively works to help decompose everything organic into rich humus. This includes our food waste, paper waste, yard waste and more. Put these guys to work and your waste footprint on the world will get smaller and smaller.”

The processing begins on Knippel’s Camas farm in a field with piles of vegetative material which is shredded along with “brown” material to feed the worm bins.  After partially composting, the shredded material is added to the worm bins to feed these appreciative creatures who express their gratitude by producing volumes of rich castings as well as more redworms.  After the redworms have diligently feasted in the compost, their castings are harvested to be used as a black gold fertilizer. With little disruption the redworms are put back to work to continue the cycle.

When asked why he raises redworms, Knippel enthusiastically responds the castings produced are superior to regular compost and other fertilizers. “I love to garden, so what could be better than taking material that many consider waste and using it to create something beautiful.”  

Knippel provides customers his specially designed worm bins and will custom build your bin for a specific area if that is your need.  One standard size worm bin can process all of the vegetative waste from your household and, properly kept, has no odor.  He also sells the worms to initially stock the bin. 

Every three weeks, Knippel teaches a vermicompost class at his farm in his Cat Chalet and is available for contract classes at your location.  The demand for redworms which are sold by the pound is high so he is always looking for new suppliers.  Those taking his classes who decide to raise redworms for sale have the income potential proportional to the amount of work they put into it.  With a properly maintained bin, the end result of these quiet fertilizer factories is rich castings with more worms as an additional marketable commodity since both are in demand for gardeners.  That is a pretty good deal for just letting Mother Nature do her work.

Knippel is experimenting with a system of raising Black Soldier Flies, a common insect whose larvae eats chicken manure.  As they reproduce, they produce larvae which the chickens then eat, supplying pure protein, a perfect example of the cycle of nature supporting itself.

Contact Information

dougknippel@northwestredworms.com

For further information

• http://northwestredworms.com

• Cabinetmaker hits pay dirt with worms
• A Home Business Can Be a Dirty Job
• Maps from Google Yahoo Mapquest
• Wikipedia articles on vermicomposting and Eisenia foetida, as detailed in Worms Eat My Garbage!