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Dear Friends
Welcome to The Urban Worm newsletter, and thank you so much for joining us, for believing in the humble but mighty worm!
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Chatting Worms
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Our community is growing and more love for the worms equates to more love in the world! Last week we had a flurry new subscribers which we can only attribute to our appearance on the wonderful Mark Ridsdill Smiths Vertical Veg podcast- thank you Mark. In our opinion you can’t beat worm chat, and especially so when both parties are agreed on their extraordinary power to heal the soil. Mark is the master of growing in tiny spaces, and worm farms could not be more compatible. Mark started on his own worm journey with a worm farm on his balcony and hasn’t looked back since!
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If you are visiting come and say hello!
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Birthday Outing
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Tomorrow (2 July) we will be heading to Groundswell, the regenerative farming festival of the year, and possibly one of our most exciting gigs so far. With The Urban Worm CIC officially turning 10 last month it feels a bit special to have the opportunity to have a captive audience of understanding farmers who want only to nourish their soil. As a community driven organisation we strive to share, and with that spirit our amazing Compost Masters team have been busy harvesting worm cocoons to gift to farmers at Groundswell. Our Compost Masters are sharing the worm love, which we think is a pretty beautiful thing.
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Cool Worms
We’ve all been struggling a little with the heat here in the sunny UK, and if we’re struggling the worms will be feeling it too. Here are a few tips & precautions to put in place:
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- Keep you worm farm out of direct sunlight in a nice shady spot. If you can’t do this covering with a white sheet will help reflect the heat.
- Keep your worms hydrated, a dry worm farm is a dead worm farm, ideally we want to keep conditions around 70% moisture.
- If you have some spare ice packs, placing them inside the worm farm (not deep in the bedding just on the surface) will bring the temperature down, and wrapping them in a towel will reduce the initial shock of the freezing temperatures so they can adjust gradually.
- Don’t over feed. Food waste is bacteria-dominant, and when bacteria multiplies it creates heat. This reverse strategy works the same for colder months, adding more food than usual will keep them warmer.
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Some of our worms taking shelter in precious shade underneath the ivy
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Market Worms
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A special shout out with gratitude to our loyal customers in Newark who came to the market especially to purchase some of the magic made by worms. Once you give our Magic Manure a trial you will want nothing less for your precious plants.
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Despite the torrential rain trying scare us off we will be returning to the beautiful village of Wirksworth for the Farmers Market this coming Saturday 4th July, and we are praying for fine weather as it has not been kind to us on market days this year - we persist!
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Open Farm Sunday
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We had a lovely day spreading the good word and connecting with some very interested, and interesting people! It was great to see people enjoying the farm. Thank you to everyone who chatted and supported us, we had some very happy customers taking away some special treat for their plants.
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Our friends Ruth & Sam pop by for a resupply of vermicompost
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Two new arrivals at the farm steal the show, but our worms are looking forward to receiving their manure for dinner
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Covering The Bases
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As regular readers may recall, we are managing food-waste composting systems across RAF bases in the East Midlands for ESS Worldwide Services, and in the last week we took out 150 litres of 'black gold' worm manure from two 1100l. bins at RAF Coningsby. With a little bit of care and attention through our monthly check-ups, the worms are thriving - chowing down on organic food waste from mess hall kitchens and catering outlets. In total we estimate there is about 2.5 metric tonnes of worm manure produced in the last year from 12 worm farms, and that will go to growing projects and community gardens on or around the bases served by our little heroes.
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A fresh batch of worm manure ready to power the greenhouse at DMRC Stanford Hall
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Above: preparing to harvest at RAF Coningsby
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Below: the first bucket of black gold ready to go to the local community garden
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Compost Master's Album
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Last month we had the pleasure of being taken on a guided forage with forager extroaodinaire and world marmalade champion Jamie of Rigsby’s Seasonal Food CIC. As part of our Compost Masters course funded by The National Lottery Awards for All and the JN Derbyshire Trust we included a special forage session to share with Pulp friction members about the abundance of free food growing wild on our doorstep. Jamie is incredibly passionate and a fountain of knowledge, and he is living testimony of the healing powers of nature. Thank you Jamie, we came away totally inspired, and perhaps with a little more chance of surviving in the wild for more than 4hrs!
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Our Compost Masters take a break from feeding the worms to find some wild food for themselves
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Prints made from natural dyes found during the local farm walk forage
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Photo of the month
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We love to hear how much you love your worms, and we especially love to hear about other halves embracing this love too! One of our happy customers Hazel sent us a picture of her new Worm and Soil Lego set that her husband hunted down on the internet in support of her new found worm love - he’s a keeper. Thank you Hazel for the share, a very cool Lego set indeed.
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Thank you as always for reading New Worm Order News! And we shall be back next month with more wormiful news.
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Anna & The Urban Worm team
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