New Bins, New Location, New Worms!

I have invented a new bin called the Flo-Thru Bin. How it works, is you put bedding and worms in one side (the bin is separated in half by a mesh screen), and let them go to work. When the bedding is finished (meaning the worms have turned the cardboard/newspaper/food scraps into Black Gold!) on the first side, I just have to put new bedding on the new side. Then I just feed and water the new side so the worms are naturally attracted to the new bedding. They all come over through the mesh and leave the finished bedding for easy harvesting. This is much better than my old system where I just had to dump out the bin when it was finished and sort out all the worms. I like finding ways to let my worms do most of the work in this business! It's also easier to sort them for sales now because most of the worms are concentrated on just one side of the bin. Now that we've been using this system for a few months, we've been able to test the idea and can say that it works great! We are selling residential-sized Flo-Thru Bins on my website! Now that we've made vermicomposting even easier and you never even really have to touch the worms if you don't want to, everyone should be doing this!!! No more excuses!

Speaking of selling things, we've moved since my last post. We are now doing business down in Sierra Vista, Arizona (not far from Tuscon). I've made lots of friends already and I really like it. So do the worms! They are multiplying like crazy and people here are really excited about vermicomposting. I've had so much fun going to the Bisbee Farmer's Market! It's on Saturdays in Bisbee, Arizona. I set up a booth and sell worm tea, worm tea bags (my #1 seller), and worms and worm bin systems. I love talking to everyone about my business and how they can start vermicomposting. I think it surprises everyone to see such a young kid running a booth at the show. Mom comes too, but she just sits in the shade and plays on her phone or reads while I do all the work! She says it's good experience and doesn't want to steal any of it from me. One day I made a world-record amount of money by getting $113 in one day! I re-invested some of it in supplies to make my new worm bins. Then of course I put 1/2 in savings for my mission and college and 10% to tithing (charity). But I still had enough left over to get a really cool nerf gun and a few fish for my fish tank. I met a lot of cool people too and had fun trading worm tea at the end of the day if I had any left. I wish I could go more often, but Mom gets busy (and I'm having fun this summer too), so I haven't gone very many times.

I also have some new worms that a fellow-worm-guy gave me at the Bisbee Farmer's Market. He gave me European wrigglers and local black wrigglers. They're not ready to sell yet though, because I'm just letting them multiply until we get a self-sustaining population.

One time this summer, I almost sold out completely of my redworms! But luckily, there were about a million worm babies in the bedding, so I took a little break on advertising and am just letting them grow big and strong. I'm just about ready to sell them again. I also have been saving up to invest in another big worm shipment, but I'm waiting to see where we'll be (and if I'll get to keep my business open) before I order them. It's kind of hard not knowing, and I'll be really sad if I have to put my business on hold for a couple of years if we move overseas, but I think it will probably be worth it.

OK, that's enough for now! Talk to you soon!

Ryan, President of I've Got Worms!

Worms, Worms, Worms!!

Have you ever wondered what thousands of red wrigglers look like? They are a squirmy, jumbled mess. I wouldn't want to be that close tangled up with a stranger, and I think they're pretty happy when I let them out in the bin so they can have some room again!
It must be worm season because everyone wants worms right now! They must know the secret about how awesome vermicompost is for their gardens and want to get started right away. Not a bad idea! Worms are hard workers but making vermicompost still takes some time. I had so many worm sales in January that I completely sold out of worms, even though they've been busy multiplying all winter. I finally got my new batch of worms today, just in time to fill three more orders. I LOVE sorting worms like this (when someone else already did the sorting!). Normally it would take me about 15 hours to sort 5 pounds of worms but today my mom and I got it all done in about half an hour. If only it were that easy all the time!The good news is that with the money from my last sale (the one that used up the last of my worms) plus these sales today, I have already paid off my order and have more than 5 pounds of worms left. Hopefully they'll get really happy and start making more worms right away or I'll have to order more again soon. But if I do, I don't mind because even though I don't make any money on those sorts, they're easy!

Just remember, if you want to get started with vermicomposting, check out my website at www.gotworms.info. I've got worm tea ready and as you can see, I've got worms!