Entreprenuers Narda Pitkelthy and Lory Rainey are on a mission to make Idaho winters more hospitable for worms. As a result, they hope to make restaurants greener and provide rich compost for area gardens.
This summer, the women opened "Worm On—a business that custom builds heated worm bins for Ketchum restaurants for the purpose of vermi-composting, the practice of using worms to break down food waste until it can be used as a nutrient-rich fertilizer.
"We also want to starve the landfill," Pitkelthy said. "We want to keep all those food scraps from being trucked down to Ohio Gulch."
The first worm bin, or "worm hotel" as Pitkethy calls them, will be installed this week at NourishMe store and café on Main Street in Ketchum. She said it could be creating rich compost in six months.
NourishMe is the Ketchum outlet for Idaho's Bounty co-op and features organic produce and many "locavore" items. Owner Julie Johnson said vermi-composting is a natural fit for her environmentally based business.
"We recycle everything here," said Johnson, who has been giving away food scraps from her juice bar to people with chickens and gardens. "The natural thing to do is compost them."
Johnson said she plans to use the rich worm poop, called "casings," that result from vermi-composting, to fertilize potted plants that she keeps out back during summer.
"You don't need very much because it is so rich you mix it with other soils," she said.
It is the winter months that present a problem for vermi-composters in Ketchum, a problem Worm On says it has solved by heating the bins with heating coils.
Ketchum Grill owner Scott Mason ordered a large-size worm bin from Worm On. He said he tried keeping worms at home for composting food scraps, but they did not make it through the winter.
"They say with these bins they can survive the winter, so we are excited about that," Mason said. "I think it will help us to be more green and use up our organic materials instead of throwing them away in our landfill."
Lory Rainey, the owner of Penelope's Café in Ketchum, keeps food scraps in a bin under the counter, bringing them home to her worms at night. For about a year she has been making vermi-compost.
This summer she has poured liquid extractions of vermi-compost, called "worm tea" on three pots of geraniums near her café in the Galleria Building. They are in bloom with vivid red flowers. Two geranium pots that did not get the worm tea have no flowers at all.
"It's amazing," Rainey said.
Pitkethy said she learned about vermi-composting 10 years ago after taking a class at the Environmental Resource Center and later helping to build a worm bin at Hemingway Elementary School with the ERC's then Director Craig Barry.
The Hemingway bin was later moved to Atkinson Park and destroyed by ants. A similiar fate also befell a worm hotel at the Community School. Others exist at the Sage School and at Hailey Elementary School.
Josh Green, an employee at Whitehead Landscaping in Hailey who has made and sold vermi-compost for several years, has mentored the Worm On partners on their path to worm wisdom. He said there are many mistakes that can be made along the way, but that he has high hopes for their success.
"I'm excited about what they are doing," Green said. "The heating coils should allow them to stay alive through the winter."
"Vermi-composting is the basis of our organic lawn and tree-care program at Whitehead Landscaping," he said. "It's very rich in fungi and bacteria."
Green got Worm On started with a batch of Red Wiggler worms, a specific variety that attacks plant fibers—a kind of worm that you would not want in your garden.
Green said he puts food scraps through a food processor before feeding them to the worms that he keeps in a heated shop. He said that if the conditions are right and the worms are kept happy, they can have quite an appetite.
"They can eat one pound of food waste in 48 hours," he said.
Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com
Narda Pitkelthy, left, and Lory Rainey work on a worm composting bin last week. Photo by David N. Seelig
