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If anyone ever said to me that someday worms would eat my garbage and I would have a worm habitat in my living room, I would’ve thought they were nothing short of crazy. But this is my story that started with the desire to save a cherished plant, and ended up being an incredible realization, and a way for me to mitigate the angst and sadness that I had begun experiencing when thinking about the earth's environment in general.
About four years ago, one of my oldest plants (February 2015 adoption), a ponytail palm (“Janice”; Fig. 1) had started to show signs of stress (sagging, bending and loss of fronds), and so I decided to change out her soil bed. I replaced the planting medium with a well-known palm synthetic fertilizer and soil mix (Fig. 2).
After about two months, she had withered to a few dry skinny sickly green fronds that had the texture of straw (Fig. 3). I was literally heartbroken. I couldn’t imagine throwing her away. I started researching and found a lot of information regarding the benefits of living soil, and the overall advantages composting provides to our planet.
So I made the decision to try vermicomposting. Here is a photo of what Janice looked like after just a few treatments of vermicast in her soil bed, and doses of vermicast tea, applied systemically (Fig. 4). She is really loving it! Her fronds have curled back up to bouncy, she’s a healthy green color, and she is growing more each day.
How did Janice heal? I removed the synthetically fertilized soil, and replaced it with soil containing vermicast (“living soil”). Vermicast is the end product of vermicomposting, which is a form of cold composting, where composting worms digest decomposing substances and expel worm castings. These castings are referred to as “black gold” (aka vermicast) in the gardening world. As I continued to empower myself with the knowledge and benefits of using vermicast and learning various applications and methodologies, it also turns out that the best food for composting worms is actually your garbage. That’s right, all of the scrap from cutting, peeling and cleaning veggies, is supreme worm food. The more diverse, the better (like just about everything!).
So in the interest of paying it forward, I have been evangelizing vermicomposting for a few years now. This website is a hope is that I am helping to spread the word.
This is Janice today, June 2024. Ponytail palms are notorious slow growers, which is what makes them really great houseplants. She is about halfway to where she started before falling ill, to now living her best life :)
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