Ever heard of "worm farms" ?

Ok so this is a big one and that's why it's the first. The worms are a big part of what created Underground Farmers, what gave us the whole drive and inspiration to start. They are one of the reasons we are called "Underground". Because we believe that everything we see above the surface of the soil is a representation of what is going on beneath. There is such abundant life under our feet, it's hard to grasp the numbers of creatures living beneath us. But now let's talk about the worms. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm striving to be. For now though, I'm just going to talk a little about my own experience. I got introduced to worm farms by a very good friend of mine, who is also responsible for my obsession of going deeper. Pun not intended. I always loved nature, especially foraging plants, mushrooms and such. But after I met this guy, I wanted to know everything. I was introduced to the world of fungi, the world of indigenous microbes, bacteria, and to the worms. Basically, he had a tub full of what for now we will call "bedding", because you can use lots of different "bedding" materials (like different types of manures, spent mushroom compost, dead soil, cardboard, and many more). Inside of this tub there lived thousands of worms. They are not your typical earthworms, although there probably were some in the mix (Would actually be interesting to know what happens if an earthworm and a compost worm reproduce). They are called compost worms. The main difference is that these fellas don't decompose soil, but instead they feed on food scraps and other organic matter and turn that into worm castings, aka poo. As far as I know, earthworms actually decompose these resulting castings further.

The Red Wiggler (Eisenia fetida) is generally considered the best worm for vermicomposting. Other candidates include European Nightcrawlers (Eisenia hortensis), African Nightcrawlers (Eudrilus eugeniae), and Indian Blues (Perionyx excavatus). These worms are well-adapted to composting environments and efficiently break down organic matter.

So what can we do with all this? Well, we can use these nutrient rich castings in our garden to boost our soil health in a very natural way, not having to be dependent on expensive and often times harmful fertilizers. Another byproduct of worm farming is the so called worm tea, which we get from steeping our worm farm in water. This process extracts nutrients and beneficial microbes from the castings, resulting in a concentrated, plant-nourishing liquid. Worm tea is often used to improve soil health, boost plant growth, and even provide some pest and disease resistance.  Now how sick is that? We can make our own fertilizer by feeding some cute earthlings with our food scraps and improve our soil, which in turn creates a healthy flourishing habitat, which then again attracts insects and pollinators, which then attract little critters, birds and on and on. All this by just adding some worm poo into your soil. So not only can we boost our plant health if we're growing veggies or other things, making our veggies more nutritious and tasty, like others would suggest, it can actually provide so much more goodness. Did you know that healthy soil can actually absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through a process called soil carbon sequestration? And did you know that by tilling soil, or any disturbance for that matter, we are releasing this CO2 back into the system? Me neither. Just learning all this. So stick around and join us in the process. And if you can, start a worm farm today. You don't need a lot of space, and once it's set up it works almost on it's own. And the worms reproduce, so you'll have more and more worms, which you can gift to friends and family.

a mix of compost worms including Red Wigglers aka Red Tiger worms (Eisenia fetida)

So gou out there and start caring for a little patch of soil today :) There is many tutorials out there on how to set up a worm farm. We will contribute one of our own soon as well but until then just do your research and let's get cracking :) Thank you so much for reading <3 Your Underground Farmer Dawid.