Winter in New Hampshire is typically serious downtime for the state's gardeners.
It's only made tougher when so much of the ground is covered with so... much... snow.
Most have to content themselves with seed catalogues as they plan for that distant spring.
But some locals have discovered the satisfactions - and the many uses - of an unusual garden-related activity.
NHPR Correspondent Kevin Gardner has this report.
JOAN O’CONNOR IS A WORM FARMER.
SHE DIDN’T PLAN ON IT.
SHE WAS DRIVEN TO IT BY THE NEW HAMPSHIRE WINTER.
O’Connor: (:44) …..well, I guess the major complaint I had was schlepping over snowbanks with my compost bucket to my garbage bin,.and I just got fed up with that routine…
ALREADY AN ORGANIC GARDENER AND A COMMITTED RECYCLER, O’CONNOR DID A LITTLE RESEARCH AND DISCOVERED EISENIA FETIDA, COMMONLY KNOWN AS RED WIGGLERS.
O’Connor: (6:13) . These worms are specialized…. and they want garbage.
O’CONNOR BOUGHT A POUND OF RED WIGGLERS, TOOK THEM HOME TO HENNIKER, AND SET THEM UP.
THEY NOW LIVE IN SHALLOW PLASTIC BINS, UNDER LAYERS OF PEAT MOSS AND SHREDDED NEWSPAPER, AND RECYCLE HER GARBAGE.
O’Connor: (2:45 … and then you feed them fruits and vegetables and paper towels and paper plates and eggshells and coffee grounds and tea bags and at first you kind of spoil them because these are your new babies and you chop the garbage into sort of little maybe half-inch cubes … and then you take the knife and you spread it, you dig down into where those worms are, down into that bedding and you put your garbage down there and then you cover it up, that’s the cardinal rule, you have to always bury your garbage and that way you won’t have any smells.
HER HUNGRY NEW BABIES PUT AN END TO THE FROZEN TRIPS TO THE COMPOST PILE.
BUT WHAT THEY PRODUCED FROM HER GARBAGE MADE THEM EVEN MORE VALUABLE.
O’Connor: (7:00) …when these worms eat the garbage, as they pass it through them their castings is your goal because you’re going to use that in your gardens…….it’s like medicinal, its just a wonderful medium for plants to grow in.
O’CONNOR’S EXPERIMENT WITH VERMICOMPOSTING WAS SO SUCCESSFUL THAT SHE TURNED IT INTO A BUSINESS – JOAN’S FAMOUS COMPOSTING WORMS.
SHE SHIPS HER RED WIGGLERS ALL OVER NEW ENGLAND NOW, AND EVEN AS FAR AWAY AS FLORIDA.
(Over SFX: Descending wooden stairs)
RECYCLING AND WASTE MANAGEMENT ARE BEHIND MUCH OF THE GROWING INTEREST IN VERMICULTURE.
BUT THOSE AREN’T THE ONLY REASONS FOR RAISING WORMS.
ATTORNEY DAVID BRAITERMAN TAKES ME DOWN TO THE COZY BASEMENT OF HIS CONCORD LAW OFFICE.
RIGHT NEXT TO THE FURNACE SITS HIS OWN WORM-BREEDING OPERATION.
Braiterman: (1:45) …. what we have here at the moment is six operating bins of backyard earthworms,
BRAITERMAN’S NATIVE NH EARTHWORMS EAT SOIL AND LEAF MOLD, NOT KITCHEN SCRAPS.
HE MIXES IN A LITTLE COMMERCIAL CHICKEN FEED TO HELP ENRICH THE SOIL WITH MOLDS AND BACTERIA.
Braiterman: (23:15 - Over SFX; changing a bin)
AS BRAITERMAN CHANGES THE BINS, YOU CAN SEE HUNDREDS OF WORMS, OF ALL SIZES, EATING THEIR WAY THROUGH THE GRAINY MULCH.
THEY’RE CREATING WHAT BRAITERMAN IS REALLY AFTER – POTTING SOIL.
Braiterman: (14:20)…. it’s a great mix into a good potting soil, but it definitely produces terrific plants, but it can get a little too strong if you go too much with it.
BRAITERMAN HAS ANOTHER PASTIME AS WELL—FISHING.
THEIR LARGER SIZE MAKES THEM EASIER TO PUT ON A HOOK.
Braiterman: (18:57) … I get an enormous amount of satisfaction from raising my own fishing worms, making my own potting soil, cultivating my own plants and …..that’s the zen of what it is that I do - everything has a sense of a sort of piece of the whole……
WHETHER IT’S FOR COMPOSTING, FISHING BAIT, OR PRODUCING NATURE’S OWN VERSION OF MIRACLE-GRO, WORM-FARMING HAS ATTRACTED THE ATTENTION OF THOSE WHO WANT TO LIVE A LITTLE GREENER.
AND, ADDS JOAN O’CONNOR, WORMS CAN SERVE AT LEAST ONE OTHER PURPOSE.
O’Connor: (26:44) …in third world countries these worms are a food source, these are protein… people ask me do you eat them and I say no no no I love my worms too much to eat them but if I were starving you bet I’d eat them
WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU EXPECT FROM THE WOMAN WHOSE COMPANY MOTTO DECLARES: “A RIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE”?
FOR NHPR NEWS, I’M KEVIN GARDNER.
