Worm farms are beginning to raise eyebrows throughout the green growing industry, and for good reason.

In Durham, Calif., there isn’t just a store, but an entire worm farm simply dubbed “The Worm Farm”. The Worm Farm, located seven miles south of Chico, Calif., has one simple goal, to provide landscapers and homeowners with their unique worm casting compost mix.

“Worm Castings” is the slightly venial way of describing worm excrement. The industry utilizes more scientific jargon, preferring the term vermicomposting to describe the use of worm waste as fertilizer.

There are many benefits to using worm castings over traditional chemical fertilizers. For starters, worm-worked soil contains high levels of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (the NPK necessary for plant growth). It increases plant’s resistance to disease and pests. Worms make many nutrients more bio-available to plants while simultaneously rendering harmful substances such as heavy metals less available. It adds increased microbial activity to the soil and makes it more resistant to compaction and run-off than inert soil. Lastly, worm castings take the place of conventional fertilizers and pesticides that fail to replace vital organic matter. These man made fertilizers also eliminate symbiotic soil life, otherwise known as the soil-web.

To top it all off, it doesn’t take much of The Worm Farm’s Compost Mix to do the trick. In fact, as little as five percent castings by volume in a planting mixture significantly increase plant growth, with 20% providing optimum yield. Castings added to seed-starting mix have been documented to increase germination by up to 70 percent.

The Worm farm sells Redworms and European Nightcrawlers, along with castings and compost mix, and can help you start a worm farm of your own in your home with a couple of pounds of worms and a worm bin, and the desire to recycle your food scraps in a very clean and natural way.