ON Anderson Walk in Smithfield there’s a small tin shed, once home to a plumbing company, sandwiched between a mechanic and a roller door repair service.
Blink and you might miss it.
Behind the front door, though, is one of South Australia’s largest manufacturer of worm farms, and the third largest in Australia.
The Australian Worm Firm was established in 2019, originally trading solely at weekend markets as a side gig for owner and managing director Peter Heidenrich.
“It was a bit of an accident if you want to put it that way,” he said.
“We had a family friend who was a farmer and he got this sample of worm castings to try on his farm. At the time my sister was looking for work after high school and … (the friend) said ‘why don’t you try selling some of this sample at markets?’
“After a while I said ‘I am quite interested in this, you mind if I take over as a hobby?’. In two-and-a-half years it’s expanded from just selling at markets to a little bit of online during the pandemic.”
The Worm Firm supplies products to both home gardeners and larger agricultural enterprises.
But what exactly is worm farming, and what are the benefits?
There are three main types of worms: deep-dwelling anecic earthworms, earthworms you find in your garden and compost worms which are usually found in a forest-floor environment.
Garden worms, sometimes referred to as ‘nature’s plow’, help to turn over and break up soil.
Compost worms, though, break down food scraps and organic material into worm castings – an organic form of fertiliser or ‘yoghurt for the soil’ as Peter calls it.
Just as we eat yoghurt or probiotics… to help our gut digest more of what we eat, castings does exactly the same for the plants,” he said.
“If you (have a) veggie garden, for instance, and you’ve put down whatever fertilisers… the plant is only taking up a certain portion of that. You put castings down, that actually helps to digest the goodness and make it available to take it back to the plant.
“With certain synthetic fertilisers, when you put it down sometimes only as much as 10 per cent gets to the plant in that initial stage in soluble form. The other 90 per cent is there… but it’s not in a plant soluble form.
“Putting something like castings down is basically just returning that biology to the soil.”
Increasing root size results in a healthier plant, making it more disease and pest resistant and bringing down costs as a farming operation.
Peter said that using worm castings was like “going back to nature”, but in a way that generates high yields and generates cost saving measures.
Last September the Worm Firm became distributors for Microtek Organics, a Barossa Valley-based business that has spent 15 years perfecting its formula.
The fertilisers can be used across a wide range of agriculture including broadacre cropping, pasture, fruit and vegetable growing and vineyards.
Through Microtek’s feeding regime, 100 per cent organic and sustainable oils are extracted from the castings.
It is designed combined with most herbicides, pesticides, copper and sulfur and can be used through applications like foliar spray, boom spray and dripper systems.
The Worm Firm breeds its own live compost worms and stocks a range worm farms, including castles and swags, as well as castings and accessories.
For the backyard grower it is both a great way to reduce household waste and improve produce.
Products suitable for worms include coffee grounds, ground-up egg shells and garden waste like weeds and bark, but not products like onion, dairy, meat or foods high in acidity.