Interview with worm woman, Mary Appelhof
What originally inspired you for a worm career direction?
I sent for information in response to an ad about raising earthworms. I was intrigued with what it described about how good redworms were at processing waste materials like piles of manure, heaps of spoiled hay and straw, piles of corn cobs. I ordered two pounds of worms, set up a bin in my basement to house them, and found that I could bury kitchen wastes in the bin with surprisingly little odor. When spring came I placed handfuls of the dark, rich-looking compost in the holes as I transplanted broccoli and tomatoes and found that it was all the fertilizer I needed to grow wonderfully productive vegetables. I was hooked. I published my first copyrighted publication, "Basement Worm Bins Reduce Garbage and Produce Potting Soil," in 1973. A few hundred people sent me a quarter and a self-addressed-stamped-envelope for the brochure.
At the time I was paying attention to the concerns being expressed about "Limits to Growth." Bigger is not always better. We can't continue to develop industrial systems that use up resources faster. With generous support from my parents I attended the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. I heard Barry Commoner speak, and Margaret Mead, and Paoli Soleri. They said that the environment suitable for life is being destroyed at such rapid pace there isn't time to merely set standards, monitor for compliance, litigate, and penalize. The process takes too long. What we must do is develop environmentally sound technologies to begin with. So, in the pale light of midnight at midsummer in Stockholm, I realized that worms were such a technology. They could take the most repulsive wastes in our farms and households and turn them back into valuable resources. I realized then and there that no matter how many worms I raised, or was responsible for other people raising, the earth could only be better off.
You have accomplished a great deal with your awareness programs. What has been the most rewarding?
The realization that millions of kids have been introduced to worms and worm composting through my books and videos. We dedicated our children's activities book, "Worms Eat Our Garbage: Classroom Activities for a Better Environment," to "the learners who become scientists as a result of using this book."
I had an email today from an eleventh grade girl who spent last summer in India working on a worm project with Dr. Radha Kale from the Agricultural University in Bangalore. Akhila was comparing the effectiveness of worms in processing liquid (milk) wastes produced in a dairy. Using bedding of vegetable wastes as a control, one experimental variable was worms, the other was worms plus microbes. The microbes she was using were bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes, and she gained experience in plating them out on agar plates. Although she won first place in her local science fair for the poster she developed, it was obvious when she sought funding for her second year that the hi-tech projects with computers were the ones that were perceived as being most worthy to fund. She will be returning to India this summer to continue her studies with Dr. Kale. What an important project! And the level of sophistication for someone who hasn't even graduated from high school yet! I have documentation from several bright students whose work with worms in their science projects inspires me! They know so much more than I did as a teenager. I feel good that I have provided tools that inspire them.
What is your most difficult personal challenge in vermicomposting?
The same as almost everyone else. . . fruit flies. My current bin is outside, so it's not an issue. But when I get fruit flies going in an indoor bin it does tend to be a bit of a nuisance. Covering deposits of food waste with bedding helps keep adults from laying eggs. I wish I had a fool-proof way to tell people how to get rid of fruit flies if they become a problem, but I don't. Fortunately, most people like having worm bins well enough for all of the benefits they provide, that having an occasional fruit fly break out doesn't make them give it up completely.
Do you personally garden and plan accordingly for your vermicomposting?
I want to try making compost tea a la Elaine Ingham this year. According to her definition, compost tea is not just an extract of water poured through compost. It is produced by immersing "good" compost in highly aerated water with nutrients to support exploding populations of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. With vigorous swirling of the water, enough energy is added to the system to free the bacteria from the surfaces to which they adhere. "Good" compost, to Elaine, has diverse populations of microorganisms, including measurable numbers of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. She has done counts on several sources of vermicompost, and, depending on the source, it can provide an excellent source of good compost. The idea is to start with high populations of as great a diversity of microorganisms as you can get in the soil foodweb and expand these populations exponentially in a nutrient-rich, aerobic environment.
I'll then experiment with compost tea made from vermicompost in my outside bin by spaying it on part of my lawn, keeping part of it unsprayed as a control. I'll also use some of it on some rather skuzzy rose bushes we have to see if we can make them less enticing to Japanese beetles and various leaf spot problems. I'll experiment with some flats of flowers, probably some vegetables. From what I've read, anything is fair game for improvement using compost tea. A consideration, however, is that since no chemicals have been applied to our property for over 12 years, and we had added hay and leaves and manure and worm castings and cover crops all that time, we probably have an excellent soil foodweb established. So improvements probably won't be as dramatic as if we had been using chemicals and herbicides and pesticides all these years.
Which came first -- worms or gardening?
Gardening. I had my first garden as an adult when I lived in a trailer during graduate school. Had a little plot with tomatoes and green beans. Moved to an apartment where it got bigger and I grew more vegetables. Then moved to the country where three of us maintained a huge garden. That's when the worms came to help, and we found out how good they were at eating our garbage and turning it into food for our tomatoes and broccoli and onions.
How long have you been gardening?
Off and on for 30 years.
What has been your favorite worm adventure?
I received a National Science Foundation Grant to do videomicroscopy of live worms. As part of it I spent rainy spring nights outside our back door videotaping night crawlers. I'd be out there in my orange parka, miner's light covered with red cellophane on my forehead, video camera in hand and stooping over trying to get a night crawler into my viewfinder. When I did, of course it was a long ways away. To get closer, I'd kneel down, then gently lower myself onto the wet grass, trying not to jar the ground, causing the night crawler to retreat into its burrow. If I was lucky, I could prop my elbows on the ground, steady the camera on the ground with a unipod I made from a bolt, and watch interminably as the night crawler slowly foraged for food, weaving its anterior end back and forth, occasionally grasping a dried blade of grass or a leaf and dragging it towards its burrow. Of course, since I didn't have much light, and the viewfinder was only an inch square, and I can't see very well anyway without my glasses, I never knew whether I got anything worth viewing until I went back into the house, hooked my camera up to the TV monitor, and ran the tape back through. I can't tell you how many times I saw 2 o'clock in the morning playing such games.
But the video, Wormania! resulted from my efforts. In my basement studio I was able to capture a baby worm hatching from its cocoon, and the beating of a young worm's five pairs of hearts. You can see clips of those images on my website.
Why in the world worms?
I developed such respect for those big, lunking night crawlers when I was out videotaping them. Looking at a single worm going on about it's daily (nightly!) activities was revealing to me. With redworms in a bin, I never get acquainted with a single worm. . . it's always bunches of worms. I've never tried to figure out a way to mark a worm so that I could follow it over a period of time. But, those night crawlers . . There was one in particular that I'll never forget. I was close enough so that it could pretty much fill the frame, even though it was awfully dark. I saw it grab hold of a piece of bark. Now, how do you think a worm would grab onto a piece of bark about 3/4 inch in diameter? You'd figure it would open its mouth and sort of grab it like you would with your thumb and forefinger, wouldn't you? Not that worm. He pulled a vacuum on it! Yep! Opened his mouth incredibly wide. . . maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter. That worm placed his mouth on the disk and held onto it as it contracted his body and tried to pull the bark towards his burrow. But, no! A blade of grass got in his way, and he dropped the bark. Now, do you think that worm would give up and forget about trying to get that piece of bark over to its burrow? No way. He pulled that vacuum again, contracted more forcefully this time, and drew that 3/4 inch piece of bark about 2 inches across the grass to the mouth of its burrow.
With behaviors like that to observe, why NOT worms?
What would I most like to find out about worms?
What they REALLY eat! I know, my book says, "Worms Eat My Garbage." But I'm quite sure that what they are eating is the bacteria and protozoa and fungi that are decomposing my garbage. But I want to learn some of the details. I know it is difficult to study this aspect of worm biology, because worms are so full of bacteria, both inside and out, it's almost impossible to create an axenic culture of earthworms, that is, a sterile culture of earthworms containing no live bacteria, fungi, or protozoa attached to them. Dr. Roy Hartenstein did some of this research a couple of decades ago, and he found, for example, that earthworms gained weight on pure cultures of live Euglenae. They didn't gain weight when the organisms were killed. Work by other scientists have shown that night crawlers are more likely to ingest a piece of leaf which has been coated with fungi than a clean leaf. Is it the bacteria in the worm's gut that produce the enzymes that enable the worm to benefit from foods? Fungi? What is the role of protozoa? Do different species perform different tasks? What is the succession of different kinds or organisms in the linear gut of an earthworm?
What are your future plans for the world of worms?
My personal mission is "To change the way the world thinks about garbage. To think of it as a resource, rather than something to throw away." Worms help me to do that. I can keep a worm bin inside or outside my home for the rest of my life. I know it works on a small scale, and the more people who do it on a small scale, the more will be accomplished on a large scale. But I think that we are finally getting to the point where people are seeing the value in harnessing the power of worms to transform large volumes of wastes into nutrient and microbially rich materials to restore the fertility of our soils. I'm helping to make that happen. I'm not undertaking large-scale projects myself, but I've helped to build the knowledge base of the people who are doing it. My books, my videos, presentations that I give, articles that I write, conferences that I organize or participate in, one on one interactions with people who are developing technologies and making projects work-all of these help me to accomplish my mission. And as the process goes forward, more and more people will find the world of worms one that is too important to ignore, too fascinating to pass by.
Your two books are well written and fun for adults and children - any more in the future?
I've taken on the role of publisher more than the role of author most recently. We published Binet Payne's book, The Worm Café: Mid-Scale Vermicomposting of Lunchroom Wastes in 1999, and it has now been translated into Japanese (as was Worms Eat My Garbage). Before I write another book of my own, I'm going to be working with Elaine Ingham to get her fascinating work with the soil foodweb into book form.
Which reference books do you feel are most helpful on your bookshelf?
Biology and Ecology of Earthworms by Clive Edwards and Patrick Bohlen.
Compost Tea Manual by Elaine Ingham.
Soil Biology Primer by Elaine Engham, Andrew Moldenke, and Clive Edwards.
Lots more. . . depends on what I have to look up.
Do you have a favorite gardening magazine?
I am more likely to read BioCycle, Resource Recycling, SPAN newsletter (publishing), ACRES USA
For pleasure, other than "worming" what do you find fun to do?
I like to have my mind stretched by interesting people. You know, good company, good food, pleasant surroundings. I prefer personal contact, and being able to interact face to face, but I also get a lot out of reading or listening to their work. People who have influenced me most greatly in the past few years. . . Rachel Carson (for the past 40!), Margaret Mead, Elaine Ingham, Gunter Pauli, many more. I do like to swim and travel. I loved swimming with dolphins last summer. Fortunately, my worm work takes me places in the world I never thought I would ever get the chance to visit. Who could ask for more?
Any doubts that worms will save the earth?
Worms, and intelligent, caring human beings who will learn their lessons from nature.
Mary Appelhof passed away on May 4, 2005.
Read Mary Appelhof's biography or visit her web site for more information on books, videos, or composting materials.