Petaluma farmer turns worms, food waste into business

While much the bounty of Sonoma County’s agricultural industry is visible in the verdant green fields dotted with livestock or in the acres of idyllic hillside vineyards, one Petaluma producer’s bustling farm is burrowed deep inside the earth.|

While much the bounty of Sonoma County’s agricultural industry is visible in the verdant green fields dotted with livestock or in the acres of idyllic hillside vineyards, one Petaluma producer’s bustling farm is burrowed deep inside the earth.

Long fascinated with using composting techniques in the garden at his rural Petaluma home, Ron Cromwell last year put to use a new type of sustainable cultivation: worm farming. Known as vermicomposting, the technique involves feeding worms organic waste to collect the nutrient-rich manure they secrete, which is credited with bolstering soil health.

“I wanted to try to fertilize my garden with more natural stuff,” he said. “I was reading about red wigglers and how those are the best composting worms, and it just kind of blossomed from there.”

After noting the difference that the creatures made in the health of his crops without the use of pesticides, the 73-year-old Petaluma native began to build his stable of European night crawlers and red wigglers. His farm now has a population of nearly 40,000 worms housed in about 30 five-gallon buckets stored under his house. The worms reproduce every 30 days and he’s working to expand his growing operation to a barn on his property.

Cromwell visits local grocery stores several times a week to collect garbage bags of food waste and produce to create a balanced diet for his worms. He blends up ingredients into vegetable smoothies to pour into the soil, or he simply leaves cantaloupe rinds, banana peels or zucchinis in the dirt for the worms to digest.

“When I feed them, it takes me three hours, and before that it takes me an hour and a half to grind the stuff up, but it’s worth it,” he said. “They’re growing like crazy and pooping like crazy and hopefully it all makes a difference.”

Every three months, he uses a harvester to sift through the soil to collect the worm’s casting - or manure - which provide nutrients in an easily digestible form that helps plants grow, according to CalRecycle. Cromwell has also made a tea brewed in part with the worm castings, which can be sprayed on plants to prevent insects, he said.

For Cromwell, who owns a Chevron gas station in Novato, farming worms provides a way to divert waste from landfills, bolster the success of his garden and to spread the word about worms to Sonoma County’s agricultural community and to his own family.

He’s enlisting help from his young grandchildren, who have aided in counting worms and with other day-to-day activities. His 11-year-old granddaughter, a Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts student, snagged a top award for a science project based around worm farming and he plans to send buckets of worms to school with his grandchildren for use at the Mary Collins School at Cherry Valley campus garden.

He’s continuing to learn about science and techniques and he’s hoping to build his inventory before he launches a local worm business, likely starting with selling worms in compostable cups to area sporting good and bait shops, he said. A fisherman himself, he said he frequently sees discarded Styrofoam bait cups floating in lakes and rivers, and he wanted to create a biodegradable option to cut down on trash in waterways.

While he’s unsure how the vermiculture aspect of his business will develop amid a complicated regulatory system, he’s enjoying learning while he explores ways to monetize his venture.

“I’m having a lot of fun and I think it’s going to be doing some good,” he said.

While he’s not anticipating he’ll ever grow to the scale of Mass Wiggle, a Petaluma-based farm that houses 20 million worms, he’s hoping to make a splash in the farming industry.

“(Worm farming) is just going to make a healthier Sonoma county,” he said. “Its going to make healthier foods. If it was done on a bigger scale, it would substantially reduce the amount of waste that’s going into the landfills.”

(Contact Hannah Beausang at hannah.beausang@arguscourier.com.)

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