By Joe Laur
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“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out….”Worms are creatures that most people would rather not hang out with. They conjure up imagers of slimy, dirty writhing rubbery little creatures that prepubescent boys torment little girls with. Or unsettling reminders that in the end, we all become “worm food”. But the little wrigglers are one of our best friends when it comes to healthy soils and good food. That’s because those night crawlers are waste to resource Olympic athletes. When Ricky Baruch and Deb Habib first moved on to the 30 acres of abandoned land in Orange, Massachusetts that became Seeds of Solidarity farm in 1995, the soils were not the best. Rocky and sandy, they were best suited to the pines and weeds already growing there.

Low on funds and with a lot of land to restore, Deb and Rick put discarded corrugated cardboard from the town dump on the ground to smother the weeds so they could plant and till. But they discovered something remarkable. When they went to remove the cardboard to plant, they found it had worms and a layer of nutrient rich fresh soil below it, produced by the worm castings (nice way to say worm poop), and the microorganisms that thrived in the dark moist environment beneath the cardboard. They decided to plant their seedlings right through cuts in the cardboard, using it as weed cover and to further enrich the soil. They were able to repeat this process on their poor soils year after year, deepening the nutrient rich layer a little more each year. Soon waste cardboard and worms became a keystone of their land reclamation and farming method.

Seems that worms love the environment under the cardboard and eat the stuff itself, working with other organisms to turn ordinary brown corrugated into extraordinary brown soils.

This method for reclaiming waste land and poor soils is very inexpensive- corrugated cardboard can be gotten for free most anywhere, and can be covered with any organic matter- hay, straw, grass clippings, wood chips- you get the picture. The procedure is simple, just put the cardboard right down on the ground where you want to eliminate weeds and create good soil.  Then cover it with hay or woodchips or other mulch to hold it in place. Wait for a few months for the team of earth dwellers to work their magic, and –voila! - good nutritious dirt.

The basics: cardboard, hay, poor soils and time….. This is on the edge of a gravel driveway.

You can see in this photo the contrast between the dry rocky soil on the left and the rich humus it is becoming on the right.

Peeling back reveals the worms and rich dark soil that is being built up.

A couple of the crawly friends come out to take a bow for the cameras.

Rich dirt- all from worms and cardboard!

Amazing -the worms moved in to eat cardboard and poop dirt! You can see in these pictures that the worms have produced soil (dark area in the middle of picture) right over a bed of stone.

Soon this field of hay over cardboard will look like...

...This one!

Walking around the farm on a sunny August day, the place looks like the Garden of Eden. All variety of vegetables, flowers, even hardy peaches, grow from every patch of land, nook and corner. The farm supplies fresh organic produce for dozens of area restaurants, food coops, and markets

Seeds of Solidarity Farm continues their “groundbreaking” work of waste land into organic resources, with solar, biodiesel, and worms! Their motto: Grow Food Everywhere!

So try this on your garden this fall- put it to bed with a layer of cardboard and mulch. In the spring put your starts right through the cardboard, and watch them grow. And say a little prayer of thanks to one of the humblest of Nature’s creatures who can help turn our waste into good food.