As The Worm Turns

As the Worm Turns… Turns Again

More than 25 years ago, I had a little business called As the Worm Turns.

Yes.

I sold worms. 😂

Red worms, to be exact.

At the time, I was raising worms for vermicomposting and selling them from my home in Turlock, California. Eventually, my little business even made it onto a California list of known worm suppliers.

I hadn't thought much about that list in years.

Then recently I wondered:

Could I actually find As the Worm Turns online after all this time?

Turns out I could.

There it was in an archived California worm-supplier list:

As the Worm Turns — Turlock, California.

Twenty-five-plus years later, my little worm business was still out there.

And apparently that was all the encouragement I needed.

Because I bought worms again.

But First, Let's Go Back to the Beginning

Worms weren't my only experiment back then.

I was also interested in herbs and essential oils. I made bath salts scented with essential oils and herbal dream pillows.

I didn't grow the herbs myself.

Instead, I would make trips to the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, where I could buy dried herbs in bulk. I'd bring them home and use them in my dream-pillow blends.

I even took my handmade bath salts and dream pillows to the Galt Strawberry Festival, sometime around 1999 or 2000, and sold them there.

So while As the Worm Turns was technically my worm business, apparently I was already doing what I still do today:

Finding something interesting and deciding I needed to try it myself.

The funny part?

Fast-forward a couple of decades and suddenly everybody is talking about worm composting, essential oils, herbs, homemade products and sustainable gardening.

Excuse me?

I already did that!

Apparently I wasn't crazy.

I was just early. 😂

One Book I Remember

One of the books I remember reading back then was Worms Eat My Garbage.

Do I remember exactly which parts of my old worm setup came from that book and which parts came from experimenting on my own?

Absolutely not.

It's been more than 25 years.

But apparently some of it stuck.

One thing I distinctly remember is starting my worm bins with potting soil.

And that's important to this story.

Because when I recently decided to start raising worms again, I started researching how people recommend doing it now.

And that's when things got interesting.

Wait. Where's the Dirt?

Today's recommendations put much more emphasis on moist organic bedding such as shredded cardboard and paper.

Oregon State University Extension, for example, recommends several inches of biodegradable bedding and says the moisture should feel about like a wrung-out sponge. It also recommends maintaining fresh bedding over the worms and their food.

So naturally I thought:

Well, that's not how I remember doing it.

There was only one reasonable response.

Experiment.

Meet the Worms

Two containers of red worms came home with me.

Approximately 50 worms in each.

And instead of simply following one method, I decided to find out what would happen if I compared what I remembered doing back then with what I'm learning now.

One bin would get the old-school treatment I remembered.

The other would get the modern bedding treatment.

And because apparently worms can't simply be called "the worms" around here, they acquired names.

Welcome to the family:

Kevin and Sally.

Yes.

I named the worm bins.

We've moved past questioning these things. 😂

Worm Management Has Changed Since 1999

I've been reading current information from Oregon State Extension, CalRecycle and other Extension resources while watching what happens inside my own bins.

And I've already learned—or relearned—a few things.

Worms need moisture, but they also need air.

They breathe through their skin, so we're aiming for damp bedding, not Worm Lake.

They also don't particularly appreciate the lights being left on. Red wigglers are sensitive to light, which explains why Kevin and Sally would prefer that management stop opening the lid to see what they're doing every five minutes.

Research has also taught me that they need grit to help process their food.

Apparently worms have a gizzard.

You know who else has a gizzard?

My chickens.

So now the chickens are contributing eggshells, which can be cleaned, dried and pulverized into grit for the worms.

This operation is becoming suspiciously circular.

Then I Learned About the Two-Inch Rule

A few days into our experiment, I was reading Oregon State University's information on worm composting and found another recommendation:

Keep a layer of fresh bedding over the worms and their food.

Out to the bins I went.

More damp cardboard went on top.

Kevin and Sally apparently needed blankets.

Meanwhile, I was checking the moisture in the bins and learning something else.

The weather had cooled by a few degrees, and suddenly the entire garden—including the worm bins—wasn't drying out as quickly.

So worm management has become less about following a rigid schedule and more about:

Check. Feel. Observe. Then decide.

Which, come to think of it, is pretty much gardening.

And Then There Was the Rain Problem

My worm bins live outside.

That's fine now.

Winter?

Not so much.

I needed some kind of roof to keep heavy rain from flooding the bins while still allowing them to breathe.

I started trying to figure out what I needed to buy.

Then I remembered something.

I already own plastic tables that I used years ago when I sold products.

Turn them over the worm-bin area and...

Worm roofing.

Problem solved.

Apparently equipment from my old businesses has now been reassigned to Facilities.

Nothing leaves this property without first being considered for at least three unrelated jobs. 😂

This Isn't Exactly the Experiment I Expected

When I started, I thought this would simply be:

Old potting-soil method versus modern cardboard-bedding method.

But it's already becoming something more interesting.

I'm rediscovering something I did more than 25 years ago while learning how our understanding and recommendations have changed.

I'm also discovering that I don't remember everything perfectly.

And that's okay.

I'm not trying to prove that 1999 Me knew more than 2026 researchers.

I'm curious.

What did I do then?

What do we know now?

And what happens when I actually try it?

That's the experiment.

Apparently I Haven't Changed Much

Back then, I bought dried herbs in bulk and turned them into dream pillows.

Today, I'm growing herbs in my own garden.

Back then, I experimented with essential oils and made bath salts.

Today, there's usually something homemade happening in my kitchen, garden or both.

Back then, I raised red worms.

And now?

Well...

There are two worm bins outside with names.

So maybe I haven't come full circle.

Maybe I never really left.

More than 25 years after As the Worm Turns first appeared, the worms are back.

This time I'm documenting the experiment as I go—the successes, the mistakes, the research, and whatever Kevin and Sally decide to teach me next.

Because apparently...

As the Worm Turns… turns again.

Read the story. Watch the video. And come back to see what the worms do next. 😂