Ron Wilson 10/11/2025 Hour 2

Your calls and learn all about worm poop and more!!!!!!!!!!!!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Take a little step to coffee, try to settle that
throat down. I don't know why, but Danny and I
both are coughing, and I'm looking at him in the
camera and he's coughing and I'm coughing. I'm not sure
why that is. I'm Ron Wilson talking about yard ny
I think is the air around here? Is that what
it is? Wow? It is both at the same time.
Eight hundred eight two three eight two five five. Don't

(00:57):
forget our website, Ron Wilson online dot com Facebook page.
In the Garden with Ron Wilson. You know, I'm always
talking about kids gardening and uh, how important it is,
you know. And some of us had the benefits of
growing up on a farm or our parents did gardening
or whatever. Uh, you know, and and and research has
showing the kids that you know, get involved with gardening

(01:20):
early on, younger in their life, will probably do it
later in their life as well. But I saw now
we're starting to see some research coming out of here
about and you probably have heard this, but I thought
it was kind of interesting about how important it is
for kids to be playing literally in the dirt or
in the mud or gardening because one gram of soil

(01:41):
can contain up to ten billion micro organisms, and they
actually have had some studies don't. As they showed were
kids that that were at a urban daycare center that
had actual sod yards, gardens, kids could play in this,
in this soil, do whatever. After a month or so

(02:01):
being in those conditions had heightened microbial diversity on their
skin and improved immune system regulations compared to kids who
did not have that at their daycare center. And then
another study found the kids in a ten week environmental
education program not only had positive changes in their gut
microbe biota, but they also had improved psychological well being.

(02:27):
And I can get that one one hundred percent. Why
so again, just a couple more of the many reasons
why we need to make sure we get our kids,
our grandkids, the neighbors, kids, who's ever kids ask first,
I'll just get started getting them working in your garden.
But get them involved somehow, playing in the dirt, playing

(02:49):
in the grass, playing in the planting plants, container gardening,
whatever it may be, because not only is it good
for them and the microbes that they get out of
the you know, they always say you got to eat
a little bit of dirt. Well, come to find out
your grandma said that, well there was something to that.
But getting out there and playing in the dirt and

(03:10):
playing in the mud and gardening and playing in the
yard and the grass in the whole nine yards. Uh,
it really is beneficial both health wise and mentally health
wise as well. Get the kids involved in gardening. Whatever
you can do to get them involved with gardening very
very important, and I think it'll come back to your
tenfold in them as well. Talking yarding at eight hundred

(03:33):
eight two three eight two five five. Frost has hit
in many areas, and of course don't let that slow
you down. That just starts me up for fall planting.
As a matter of fact, looking forward to after the
shows today, we're going to be doing some clean up
in some of our beds. Planting. We got some Irish
we want to move and transplant some heirloom from a
grandmother that my wife's grandmother that we're going to add

(03:55):
to the to the garden. Things like that, and getting
the house plants ready to come back inside, which, by
the way, talking about it early with it bringing the
foliage plants, houseplants back in couple things real quick. I know,
try to set all those up if you can, into
a shadier area before you bring them inside, for maybe
a week or so, just to start to acclimate them

(04:16):
into being a lower like condition. I don't care what
it's like inside your house, sunroom or whatever, it's not
like being outside, and so that helps to start to
acclimate them into a lower like condition. Also, during that time,
we'll hose them off two or three times, making sure
we try to knock off as many as insects as
we can. Pull them out of the pot at least once,

(04:37):
and take a look at the root system. Make sure
there's no hitchhikers in there, critters that can hide in
the bottom of the containers. Yes, we have found everything
from mice to voles, to snakes to all kinds of things.
And if you have a bunch of ants or bugs
or whatever in the soil, you see a lot of activity,
don't forget. You can just take a tub and fill
it up with water and just submerge, submerge that whole pot,

(05:01):
you know, plant and all down in that water. Let
us sit there for a couple hours. Whatever's in the
pot's going to either drown or float up to the
top of the water. You can scoop them off, throw
them away, let bring it back out after a couple hours,
let it drain thoroughly. And you should have taken care
of whatever was inside the soil, unless it was eggs,
of course, but taking care of everything that was inside

(05:23):
that soil, so you know you're free of hitchhikers, and
spring once or try twice with like insecticidal soap, not
the one you make up at home, but the commercially
purchased manufactured insecticidal soap or horticultural oil. Both of them
work nicely, but I like the insecticidal soap. A couple

(05:44):
of good springs of that really soak them well. That'll
also help to knock down any hitch hikers. Talking about insects.
And then one last thing, if you want to, you
can also add a systemic insecticide to the soil. So
after you're done with all of the drenching and checking
and all of that, you could come back and actually
use a systemic insecticide in the soil, which is taken

(06:08):
up inside the plant helps to protect it from insects
from the inside out. Now you're ready to bring them
back inside the house. And when you bring them back inside.
The house is obviously as much light as possible. Do
we expect leaves to drop. It's going to happen. They
make an adjustment to the house itself. Don't over water
when you start seeing the leaves starting to drop a

(06:29):
little bit. Keep your eyes open for any insect flare ups,
because it does happen. You bring them inside. Now it's
constantly warm, love on the inside of the house. Next
thing you know, the aphis or whatever may be might
start to explode in populations. Keep that insecticidal soap on
hand and are ready to use, and an old shower curtain.

(06:54):
Just take that plant that may have gotten infected. You've
got a couple things here. If it's small enough, you
can turn it on its side, put it in a
utility tubb or in the kitchen sink and rinse it off.
And if you rinse it off, you knock most of
the insects off of there by doing that. As a
matter of fact, they enjoy you doing that every two
or three weeks anyway, because they love the moisture and
getting the dust rinsed off of their leaves. So you

(07:15):
can do that, let it dry and come back and
spray with insecticidal soap on the shower curtain so it
doesn't get anywhere on the floor or whatever. Let it
dry it and put it back and that should get
them under control. So keep that in mind, keep them
watching them. No fertilizing if you want it. You know what,
if you wanted to do half the normal rate once

(07:36):
a month over the winter time, you can, But remember
these plants are kind of go into a hibernation for
the next three or four months until you get them
back outside again or until the days start getting longer
again and more sunlight, so they're kind of slowing down,
not doing a whole lot. Really don't need any if
you know, very little fertilizer. So half the rate, that's fine.

(07:58):
You can do that if you'd like to, but otherwise
it just kind of back off. And then when you're watering.
Remember this is key again, watering, doesn't it amazing how
watering is a key to a lot of these plants, right,
plant right places and watering as well, But anyway, use
lukewarm to warm water when you water, all right, lukewarm

(08:20):
to warm water when you water in the wintertime. The
plants respond much better than using cold water. All right,
so use lukewarm house at least room temperature warm or warmer,
you know, come in lukewarm coming out of the faucet
if you're using faucet water, and then soak them well.
When you water, let everything drain out of the bottom.

(08:42):
Don't ever leave water in the sauce or below. Let
it all drain out, let it, set it out, and
then let it get close to totally dry before you water. Again,
Remember these plants are indoors, they're shutting down, they're taking
don't take off quite as much moisture as they would
had to have been actively growing in the house, you know.

(09:03):
So again it may dry out depending on how how
warm you keep the temperature, So just watch really closely
use your moisture meter. But let it get really close
to dry to totally dry before you soak it. Again,
very very important, soak dry, soak, let them stay a
little bit more on the dryer side. Use lukewarm water

(09:25):
when you're watering, and you should be good to go.
But again, keep watching for any insect flare ups and
that insecticidal soap should take care of you. Just take
it away from the other plants and again rinsing those
plants off. If you can do that at a sink
is absolutely wonderful, all right, and you can rinse them
off and you'll be surprised how you can keep populations
down of insects over the wintertime and how much the

(09:47):
plants will love you for doing that as well. To Delaware,
we go, Katie.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Good morning, good morning. How are you right?

Speaker 1 (09:54):
I am great in yourself, so I'm.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Doing well good. I have a question.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
I bought, you know, at my local gardening place, the
little marigold seedlings that come in a six pack, and
I just take the whole six pack and I just
plant it right there.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well, they turned out beautiful this year, I mean.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
They got huge good And now I have all these
leftover seeds that I have, you know, because it's getting
colder and they're browning up and I want.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
To save them. But excuse me, there's a truck going Mike,
and I want to save them for planting next year.
Now what I'm wondering, can I actually.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Just plant them in a row in my garden or
do I have to start them out of seeds?

Speaker 1 (10:34):
I do? You can direct so marigold seeds in the springtime,
as long as you know got that soil temperature get
up to sixty five seventy degrees, and then you can
just direct soil. At that point, I'm assuming you're just
going to collect them up and then put them an
envelope or something over the winter time inside the house. Yeah.
And then next yeah, as soon as you get to

(10:54):
about sixty five degrees soil, watch the soil tempts. You're
good to go. Oh, and then then bring them out.
Here's the kicker. When you do plant those and they
start to come up, they're gonna be thick. So if
you're gonna, you know, are you gonna separate them out
and plant them in other areas?

Speaker 3 (11:13):
No, pretty much in the one area in front of
my garden. It keeps the rabbits in the insects. Your
wife for some reason got it.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, you might want to go through and just kind
of thin them out a little bit, remembering how big
each one can get, so you give them plenty of
room to grow. And if you can get them out
with the roots on them, then you can transplant those
somewhere else as well. But that's one thing you've got
to be a little bit cautious about. But otherwise Marigold's
zennias are two that are very easy to grow from
seed as a direct seed right into the ground.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Thank you so much, love your show.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Thank you, appreciate the call. Appreciate you, and I hope
the storm is coming through up in that area. It
doesn't hit you, guys, but be careful in case it is.
All right, We'll take a quick break. We come back.
Phone lines are open for you. Eight hundred eight two
three A two five five. At the bottom of the hour,
we're going to talk about earth worm castings. We're gonna
talk about worm poop. Here in the garden with Ron Wilson.

(12:04):
How is your garden growing?

Speaker 5 (12:06):
Call Ron now at one eight hundred eighty two three
talk you are listening to in the Garden with Ron Wilson.

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Speaker 1 (13:30):
Well.

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Speaker 1 (14:44):
Welcome back here in the Garden with Ron Wilson again
that toll free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five talking about yarding website Ron Wilson online
dot com. Plann of the week The Freeman I series
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(15:28):
But again, check them out at our website on Wilson
online dot com. And Rita's recipe is caramel apple dumpcake. Mmmm.
Sounds delicious. To Lexington, South Carolina, we well go and
talk to Robin. Robin, good morning, Good morning, Rolin.

Speaker 7 (15:47):
I'm in South Carolina, been here for years, but I
grew up in northeast Kentucky and my dad always had
big gardens, and I just remember the summer fruits, the
watermelon and the ca cantilopes being just wonderful. Okay, And
and I have been very disappointed in the last several
years with the produce I get that type of produce

(16:10):
at the grocery store or even at a farmer's market
type thing. Sometimes. Could you tell me what and I
do like seeded watermelons? Could you tell me the sweetest,
juiciest watermelon I should try to start from seed myself
next year. And the candlelope that would be the best
to start myself next year.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
The Cantlope Boy. There's so many out there today. I
don't have a personal recommendation for them. But let me
tell you about one that and and and it's a
it's actually known in the Ohio Valley, but it does
it'll do well for you. It's a it's almost a
foolproof heirloom watermelon called Pickle Seimer pickle Cimer. Now, this

(16:49):
is like I said, it's an heirloom and you and
the only place that I know that you can get these.
And if you don't get this all you just email
me and I'll get it back to the info. But
it's circup plants. I think there is circuplants dot Com
if I'm not mistaken. But they're in Logan, Ohio. This
is an heirloom watermelon that's been passed down year year
after year. If you're with his family, they do absolutely

(17:12):
great with little or no care. They'll take all kinds
of weather and soil conditions. I'm sure they'll do well
for you. In South Carolina and most folks that grow
Picklsheimer watermelons absolutely love them. And I think they're impressed
with the fact that they don't take a lot of care.
They do really well. And again it's an heirloom and
pass down for a generation after generation, so check that

(17:35):
one out. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to
think of what one of the ones that he has
as far as the sugar melons too, but I don't
I don't have a name for you on the sugar Milton.
I apologize, but if you email me, I'll send you
back that information and I will give you a couple
of names on the sugar melons that I might suggest.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
That you use.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Go to And if you email me, go to Ron
Wilson at iHeartMedia dot com and I will get that
right back to you next week.

Speaker 7 (18:03):
Okayndy, I got a busy weekend.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Okay, it sounds great. I'll look for all the for
your email.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
Ok.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Good talking with you, and again if you're interested. It's
called pickle cimer and there's a long story behind it,
which most heirloom plants and vegetables and all there are,
but this was an interesting story. Family that had grown
them for years and then one year had given away
all the seeds of families and whatever. One year had
a terrible crop and some reason lost the crop. I

(18:32):
don't remember what the deal was, as many many years
ago thought they had lost the family heirloom seeds, had
given them to someone who actually grew plants for heirloom seeds.
He found out that they had lost all the family
seeds and wound up giving them back to them. It's
a really cool story. But anyway, it's called pickle Cimer.
And I tell you what, we talked about that five

(18:55):
or six years ago, and everybody I know that's ever
grown that one since then have had absolutely loved that
particular watermelon, So I might want to give it, give
it a shot, pickl Ceimer watermelon. All right, We're gonna
take a break at the bottom of the hour here.
When we come back, hopefully we'll get a hold of guy.
His name is Jeff Teepele he is he works for UH,

(19:18):
one of the largest earthworm producing it's not a factory
of producers in the United States. And they, along with
that obviously are earthworm castings, and of course earthworm castings
are earthworm poop, all right, and it's you know, earthworm

(19:39):
castings has been a great soil amendment and gaining more
and more notoriety all the time. It's expensive but it's
a really great soil a member. We're gonna find out
why it's so good, and we're gonna find out what
it takes to produce all the earthworm castings that they produce.
It's a great story. Stay tuned for it. Coming up

(19:59):
next here in the Garden with Ron.

Speaker 5 (20:01):
Wilson, screen Time or not Ron can help and one
eight hundred and eighty two three talk, They says in
the Garden with Ron Wilson.

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Speaker 1 (22:02):
Welcome back here in the garden with Ron Wilson again
that toll free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five. Worm castings, as I call them, worm poop.
You hear more and more about them all the time.
Been around forever, right, but you know it's becoming more
and more a staple on the shelvings shlving shelves of
your local garden centers and all highly recommended organic gardeners

(22:26):
and all. What's so important about worm castings are worm poop?
And did you ever wonder what it takes to gather
up all these worm castings and worm poop so you
have enough to bag it up. Well, we've got the
guy who knows more about worm poop than worms know
about worm poop. The website is wormville dot com. His
name is Jeff Teeple.

Speaker 9 (22:44):
Jeff, good morning, Good morning, Ron. Thank you for having
me on your show today. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
You like talking about worm poop? And is it okay
that I call it worm poop? Do I have to
say worm castings?

Speaker 8 (22:55):
No?

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Worm poop is just fine here.

Speaker 9 (22:57):
I'll jokingly say that's the reason I'm still a single
go because I tell people I sell worm poop, So
I love it.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
I love it all right. First of all, so folks
understand what we're talking about, because there are some folks
I'm sure that have not seen worm castings out there.
But you know, this is something that's been coming on
for a long time and really gaining popularity now. But
Earth learned castings really is earthroom poop, right.

Speaker 7 (23:23):
Yes, it is.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
Ron.

Speaker 9 (23:24):
It's interesting, you know, ten fifteen years ago, nobody knew
what this stuff was. I mean, there were some government
studies out there and some collegiate items that just talked
about this being the gold standard for organic fertilizer or
soil amendments depend upon your state. There and slowly but surely,
every year people find this product, they put it into

(23:47):
their potting soils about a twenty five percent mixture, and
they come up with the best harvest they've ever had
in their life. Here the best flowers, the best succulents.
It's really a cool product because it works. And I've
in fifteen years in doing this, I've never had anybody
ever come back and say, Wow, this didn't work.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Interesting, you know, and I know you don't listen to
our show, but at the end of a show every
every week, I say one of the things I encourage
folks to do is go out and pamper your worms.
And I have that written on my truck because I've
always said, if you pamper your worms and your worms
are happy through all the things that they do, your
plants are going to be happy as well. And I
think they go hand in hand. So you know, I'm

(24:29):
all behind the earthworm castings because I agree with you
one hundred percent. So all right, so we're sold. It
sounds great and I've used it myself obviously, but we
love it. So what does it take? How do you?
I mean, you know, so now folks are sitting there
trying to visualize. All right, so how do you come
up with all of this earthworm poop. What is the

(24:50):
process to go through this? And you guys, are you
the largest facility in the United States doing this?

Speaker 9 (24:56):
We may be the largest in the world, in the
world mighty bigger than it us we do all To
back up a little bit here, we do all the
fishing worms for Walmart bass pro capelas. I mean, when
you go by fishing worms, there's a sixty five.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
To seventy chance you bought our worms.

Speaker 9 (25:15):
At any given time, we have between one hundred and
ten one hundred and thirty million worms growing, which is
hard to believe, but that's our farm out there. And
the best thing about worm casting is there's a lot
of little worm farms out there, and God bless them.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
They're all great.

Speaker 9 (25:32):
But it's all about what you feed the worms. And
worms will eat anything you give worms, you know, manure, food, waste.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
I mean, they'll eat your shirt. Give them a chance. Here.

Speaker 9 (25:45):
The reason that people like our product is that the
only thing we feed our worms is non GMO corn
solids grown on site, no chemicals whatsoever. So the worms
are fed the same diet each and every day, three
sixty five a year. And that the blessing part is
that when the product comes out here we have the

(26:07):
exact same product heats and every time, which is wonderful.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
And then obviously this is organically rated OMRI rated. Oh yes,
and again it's corn silage that you grow on the property,
so you know exactly what you're feeding them. They all
get exactly the same thing. So that's how you can
say that it is a certified organic worm castings.

Speaker 9 (26:31):
Oh yes, we're or OMRI certified here. We've gone through
every test you could ever imagine.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
Here.

Speaker 9 (26:38):
We are one of only two companies that up in Canada.
We receive the excellent rating for our castings and we're
kind of proud of the fact that they kind of
took us to a very tough test and we walked
away and they were very happy with our product here.
And there's a reason why so many major players out
there are buying our product in all can putting it

(27:00):
into their product and make their product better.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Talking with Jeff Teeple, he is their website and check
it out. It's wormville dot com. It's pretty easy wormville
dot com. The name of the product is Wormgannic worm
Castings and you will find it at your locally owned
independent garden centers and other areas that sell earthworm castings
as well. And of course you'll find their earthworms, like
you said, all over the place. Again, just go to

(27:24):
a website you learn more about them wormville dot com.
So a million, one, one hundred and thirty million earthworms
U and I'm assuming you have different types of earthworms
that do the verma composting here. What how big is
the facility that houses one hundred and thirty million earthworms?

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Thanks veryman.

Speaker 9 (27:47):
It's beyond kind of anybody's imagination. One that come up there,
they'll go look at it. We're about fourteen acres undercover.
We grow our worms on on concrete and there's not
enough earth to really take care of what we do.
Our basic product is we have our own peat bogs

(28:09):
from down to Florida. We harvest our peat moss. That's
where we grow our worms on. And it takes about
a nine month process to go from being an infant
juvenile all the way up to the time where it
can they can become fishing.

Speaker 4 (28:24):
They go fishing, which is the best way to say it.
And we do everything on site there. We package it,
we label it. It's a fascinating operation.

Speaker 9 (28:33):
And once you take a look at it, everybody I've.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
Taken their walks away going wow, somebody.

Speaker 9 (28:39):
Actually came up with this idea, the gentleman that owns
a farm.

Speaker 4 (28:44):
Same with Bruno.

Speaker 9 (28:45):
He came here from France about forty years ago and
he went and looked around all the little worm farms
and he saw there was not a major player, and
he proceeded to develop this own company himself here and
it's just an amazing operation. So when you go online
and look at it, you'll see this big farm here
and again it's like fourteen acres undercover that we grow

(29:08):
our worms in.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
And you're in Tennessee, correct, Yes, sir.

Speaker 9 (29:13):
We are in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. We're
about two thousand feet above Nashville and Chattanooga up on
Monteagle Mountain and ye, I mean we have about eight
hundred acres up there and we process all the worms.
And the cool part is that after the worms have
lived in this peat malls for roughly nine months, we

(29:35):
separate the worms and they go to packaging and go fishing,
and we take the castings in a separate area. Then
we back them up in both one cubic foot bags
and eight court bags, and then of course we have
our big toads. Also we sell to corporations, but that's
how we kind of sell it.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
There you go talking with Jeff Teepol. He is from
worm Gannis at Wormganic Earthworm Castings. Go to the website
wormville dot com to learn more about them, or take
a break. We come back. We'll find out which earthworms
produce the most earthworm castings, what are they really good for?
And a lot, whole lot more Here in the Garden
with Ron.

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Speaker 1 (32:04):
Welcome back here in the garden with Ron Wilson. We're
talking worm poop, earthworm castings, and we've got the earthworm
casting expert with us this morning, Jeff. People from Wormganis
go to their website wormville dot com, wormville dot com.
Great story there, you can read all about it, learn
more about it. So, Jeff, you know when you're talking
about you're raising these worms? Uh you got what redworms, nightcrawlers?

(32:28):
What different types of worms do you use?

Speaker 4 (32:31):
Uh? There're majority are red wigglers. Okay, they are the
main ones over there.

Speaker 9 (32:36):
We have been approached by the largest retailer in the
world as far as like doing their nightcrawlers as well,
and we're in the process of kind of developing that,
but most of their red wigglers at the moment. And uh,
it's it's kind of fun because you go in there
and if you see our process, it's each row is

(32:58):
about the size of a car carl lane and uh,
if you put them all back to back, they will
go over two miles long.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Jeez, that's a lot of worms.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
There's a lot of worms.

Speaker 9 (33:09):
And when you take your hand and put it down
in there and pull them up here, you'll pull up
about a thousand worms and depend upon your gestation. If
that creeps you out some people it does, But uh.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Don't tell me. Don't tell me you taste one to
make sure they're doing really well well.

Speaker 9 (33:29):
People have asked me that before, and I've decided I said, no,
I haven't tasted them quite yet.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Okay, maybe one day down the road here, all right,
so let me well, let me ask you this. Then,
how in the world did Jeff Teble get involved in
earthworm castings?

Speaker 4 (33:44):
H that's a very inting question here.

Speaker 9 (33:46):
I had a person that I knew that said you
need to come meet Bruno who owns a farm. He
has the biggest worm farm, and I kind of hate
to admit it. I kind of blew him off for
a while, but finally I went up to the fall
and I looked around and it's research on castings and it,
like I said earlier, it was the gold standard of fertilizers.

(34:08):
And I saw that he had mountains of this stuff here,
and I said, let's start.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Bagging this and he.

Speaker 9 (34:14):
Was like, well, okay, give me a proposal. And long
story short, we put together proposal and he went out
and bought a bagging machine.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
And it was the funny.

Speaker 9 (34:22):
Little story was I said, you know, let's start selling
the stuff here. He goes, I want, went and bought
a bagging machine. Now you're going to start selling it.
And I'm like, oh crap, I have to just start
selling the stuff that nobody needs anything about. So but
he was so he's such a great gentleman and he
just gave us time to grow. And as I talked
to him yesterday, fifteen years down the road, people are

(34:44):
falling in love with the product.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
Here, and he just starts growing every year. We grow
about fifteen percent every year.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
I love it, and it is great stuff. There's no
doubt about it, and it's you know, and again I'm
assuming you know, I've never planned anything straight in earth
work castings, but I'm assuming you could do that. But
as a soil amendment, as a potting soil amendment, absolutely outstanding.

Speaker 9 (35:08):
Well, you what you really want to do, ron is, uh,
I want to use about a twenty five mixture because
it's so full of nights.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
When you pull.

Speaker 9 (35:15):
It out, it has a coffee type texture to it.
There's no smell at all, and you look at it
and go, wow, this is the rich stuff here. But
a twenty twenty mixture is all you really need. Over
that is overkill for the plant. So I said, it's
kind of weird to promote a product says, don't use
too much of it, but just use enough and you
will have the best harvest you've ever had in your

(35:37):
entire life.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Talking about Jeff Tepul, the website is wormville dot com.
He is It's worm gannigs and he is our earthworm
castings or earthworm poop expert. Learn more about how to
do this. Hey, So you know, it's probably a dumb question,
but so you're harvesting all of these worms. And obviously
you're harvesting the worms to sell for for fishing, and

(35:59):
then you're harvesting the earthworm castings. Do you also do
you collect eggs? I mean, how how does that process work?

Speaker 9 (36:07):
It's a very interesting process. That's a great question. It's
a very interesting process because we bring we pull the
worms up with our big front end loaders lack of
better terms.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
We put them into a car wash with no water.
It tumbles everything.

Speaker 9 (36:21):
The worms come down one area, the castings on another.
Then we sift the castings out and we get the
eggs slash cocoons. And we have nine different levels of
growing worms there from juveniles, infants all the way up
to teenagers all the way up to the time to
go harvest. And uh, well I just we jumped and
they say, you know, we have nine different levels.

Speaker 4 (36:41):
Okay, I love it. But then we uh we separate
them all.

Speaker 9 (36:46):
Then we just start the process all over again, and
nine months down the road we harvest them.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
Then we do it all over again.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
So you're collecting your own eggs and the cocoons as
you're doing that that whole processing. Are there are there?
Are there diseases and other issues that can happen to earthworms.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
Not really, I mean yeah, to answer you, hell, that's
a good question. Yeah, we have.

Speaker 9 (37:09):
We've done this for so long here. We've had situations
where we've had to quarantine some things over there, but
we've learned over the course of twenty thirty years how
to control everything. So we haven't had any problems over there,
well over twenty years.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Okay, So so, Jeff, I'm curious too. You know when
we talk about earthworm castings and there are other companies
out there that have earthworm castings that are available, is
there like a how do you know? What? Is there
a standard? How do you judge earthworm castings? Obviously I'm
familiar with your product. I think you guys are excellent.
I think your top of the line. How do you

(37:45):
how do you is there a standard that you have
to follow earthworm castings?

Speaker 9 (37:50):
Well, it depends upon which state you're dealing with. Okay,
and let's don't go down that area right now. Okay, okay,
but now it's what I'm jokingly say that the one
thing you want to find out is what are you
feeding your worms?

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Right?

Speaker 4 (38:04):
And that's the number.

Speaker 9 (38:05):
One thing is you know, like I said, people take
extra food, waste, they take manure, they take all.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
Kinds of stuff.

Speaker 9 (38:12):
Ours obviously, you know with the work with the corn
solids here, we know what our consistency is. That there
are other farms out there, and God bless them, there
some great farms out there and some very intelligent people
doing it.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
But the number one question is what.

Speaker 9 (38:26):
When you feed the worms you're gonna get You're gonna
get out what you feed them. So that's what makes
our process. Like I said, there's a reason why all
the major players out there, I'm gonna throw out some
names like Sungrove, Michigan, Peet Gosh, a neutral farm. Everybody

(38:47):
buys from us because they have seen the quality of
our product, which is which which gives me a little
bit of pride here, and I appreciate you let me
share that with them, you know, because they're great companies
and were honored that they chose us to their supplier.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
So yeah, and again I've used your product. I'm very
familiar with it, and it's it's top of the line,
there's no doubt about it. And again you can learn
more about it at wormville dot com. You can learn
the whole story and what Jeff's talking about here. So
you know, benefit wise, again, you've talked about all the benefits.
Did I read the other day? I was trying to
freshen up a little bit on some of the many
benefits from earthworm castings that in some respects they're also

(39:25):
seeing that it could be a possible insect repellent when
you use that in with your mixes that. Have you
learned more about that?

Speaker 9 (39:34):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, I've done some research on that as well.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
We can't yes, no, you don't label it that way.

Speaker 9 (39:43):
We can't label it legally, but you look at all
their research has been done by different universities and different places.
It does do that, but we cannot go out front
and actually put that on our claiming.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Right.

Speaker 9 (39:56):
Yes, I mean I use worm casting, I do succulents.
I do all because I've in my guard here, I'm
never having insect problems whatsoever.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
See another one of the many better, I'll be careful.

Speaker 9 (40:08):
Not to get a federal employee on me or something
like that.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
No, I get it, but I but again, I've been
reading and that came up in several conversations and research
that folks had done when they were using earthworm castings
that they were noticing that that was and I know
you can't put on the label, but that that was
happening as well. So just another many of the many
benefits that are out there for using earthworm castings. And again,
as Jeff has said, this is something when you buy

(40:35):
a bag of earthworm castings. It's not cheap, there's no
doubt about it, but it is something that you add
to your potting mixes. And I and again, like you mentioned,
some of the companies there that are potting soil manufacturers,
they're adding that to their mixes. Now you're seeing that
a lot more as we see these potting mixes come along,
these top quality potting mixes having earthworm castings added to them.

Speaker 9 (40:57):
Well, it's an honor that they will come over there
and they come to us, They take our product, they
test it right and left, and hundredercent of the time
they come out and go, this is good stuff here.
And you know, we're honored that they would take the
time to inspect us and then they try us out.
Then all of a sudden they're buying from us.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
YEP, no doubt. Talking with Jeff Teepele Wormville Dot com
is their website. Do you have on the website? I
know you have a listing of where you can find
this all around the country for your worms. Did they
also have that for the worm castings?

Speaker 4 (41:32):
We have a little bit.

Speaker 9 (41:33):
It's interesting because we're in Every distributor in America buys
from us, and they just sometimes they don't want to
give out their customer list. Got it, But just go
to a lot of your mom and pop shops here.
We're not big into retailers yet. They We'll tell you
up front, they warn us, and at some point we

(41:53):
will actually start.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
Doing business with them.

Speaker 9 (41:55):
But we're gonna do it at when we can do
it properly.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
Just jump into it.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Sure I get it. And if your local independent garden
center doesn't have it, check give them the website. Go
to wormville dot com and learn more about it real quick.
Got fifteen seconds green worms? How do you get green redworms?

Speaker 4 (42:16):
Green redworms? Ah grow until they turn red.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
I guess I just saw on your website. I think
they do that. Hey, Jeff, that was a great I
appreciate and you spending time with us this morning. Again
it's wormville dot com. Thank you, sir. Have a great day.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
It was an honor to be here.

Speaker 6 (42:33):
Thank you, Ron h.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
You take it, take care. That's what they have on here,
green redworms and they are green anyway. Check it out.
It's wormville dot com. And now you've learned all about that.
Now you know more about why I say pamper your worms.
They are very very important. As far as what's going
on in your yard and garden, quick break, we come back.

(42:54):
Phone lines are open for you at eight hundred eight
two three eight two five five Here in the garden
on Wilson.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
Landscaping, Ladies, ear with your personal yard boy. He's in
the garden and he's Ron Wilson.