Paul Kieu
With dirt beneath her fingernails and a big smile on her face, Taylor Lyons Vaughan recently welcomed me to her suburban worm farm in Lafayette—where we talked about recycling, worm poop, and the stress-relieving properties of soil. She is the “worm lady” of Worm Lady Recycles (WLR), her small home-based business where she tends to her collective of composting worms that recycle paper, food, and yard waste into valuable nutrient-rich castings, the vermiculturist’s word for worm poop.
[Read a story from 2013 about composting at the Craven Center here.]
In 2018, while on maternity leave from studying Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a series of inner nudges led Lyons Vaughan to investigate worm farming as a business opportunity. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, she felt inclined to start a business that would allow her to be close to home with her three small children. After reading an article noting the challenges to area recycling systems, she came across the story of a successful worm farmer in India. This farmer, also a mother (but with twelve children), inspired Lyons Vaughan to see her own suburban backyard in a new light—as an opportunity to establish a greener method of recycling in her community, while producing soil-enriching nutrients in the process.
Paul Kieu
Lyons Vaughn, also known as the “worm lady” of Worm Lady Recycles (WLR).
Unlike the local municipal recycling system—which sends recyclables to a sorting facility near Baton Rouge—WLR recycling stays local. WLR has several paper collection points in the area, including one in her front yard, where neighbors regularly bring brown papers (thin cardboard, toilet paper rolls, egg cartons). She shreds the paper in a wood-chipper and uses it for bedding material that will eventually be consumed by the worms. To this, she adds bagged leaves collected from neighbors and friends.
"Raking her fingers gently through the beds, she smiled and asked, 'Can you hear them?' We stood quietly for a moment in the shed, and indeed I could hear the gentle rustling of hundreds of thousands of worms working." —Catherine Schoeffler Comeaux
Lyons Vaughn uses mostly European Red Wigglers that, in addition to recycling paper and yard waste, can process fifty to sixty pounds of food waste per week. She feeds them with waste fruits and vegetables generated by local grocery stores, as well as her own household food waste. To ensure the health of her worm farm and due to size constraints, she does not accept food waste from the public.
The magic happens in the worm shed, a small portable building just beyond two trampolines and a zip line, where Lyons Vaughn laid chopped bell peppers and cantaloupe in shallow beds arranged in multi-levels. It was a cold breezy day when I visited; the insulated shed offered a cozy haven in which to learn more about the business. Lyons Vaughn explained that she raises most of her worms indoors to control for moisture, temperature, and potential theft by songbird. Raking her fingers gently through the beds, she smiled and asked, “Can you hear them?” We stood quietly for a moment in the shed, and indeed I could hear the gentle rustling of hundreds of thousands of worms working.
These are not your typical earthworms, which tend to feed deep in the soil on already-composted material. The European red wigglers stay closer to the surface, rapidly consuming organic material—food waste, paper, and yard trimmings—generating castings which are rich in iron, sulfur, calcium, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The Louisiana State University Agriculture Center’s testing of WLR castings has shown them to be super concentrated in nutrients, recommending they be used at a rate of fifteen percent castings to soil—the typical recommended percentage being thirty percent.
Not relying on these reports alone, Lyons Vaughan has several experiments growing in her backyard, where she compares plants growing in worm casting-enriched soils to those that are not. She also uses the castings to create a liquid fertilizer known as “worm tea” to feed her plants, which she also sells at local farmers markets.
Paul Kieu
“Digging in the dirt is my therapy,” Lyons Vaughan related. “I rarely wear gloves, since being in contact with the soil is known to trigger the production of serotonin in the brain.” She was referring to research that has made a connection between the soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae and the production of serotonin, which can provide relief from anxiety and depression. As someone who lives with both, she welcomes this small-business byproduct that keeps her hands in the dirt most days.
“Digging in the dirt is my therapy,” Lyons Vaughan related. “I rarely wear gloves, since being in contact with the soil is known to trigger the production of serotonin in the brain.”
In addition to the worms, Lyons Vaughan is enlisting another hardworking critter on her small farm—the black soldier fly. A pound of black soldier fly larvae can eat seven pounds of food waste per day, and they are an excellent source of protein for her chickens. The larvae can also feed fish, reptiles, even humans. “In other countries, they fry them up and eat them. They’re not so different from crawfish,” she pointed out, but no, she has not tried them—yet. She sees her business growing beyond worms to include a variety of insects in her product line up.
Paul Kieu
In addition to her main “employees,” her red wigglers, Lyons Vaughan also enlists the help of a brood of black soldier fly larvae. A pound of these babies can eat seven pounds of food waste per day.
Lyons Vaughan envisions worm composting as a way for households, restaurants, and businesses to better manage their food waste, which the EPA currently estimates to be 219 pounds per person annually in the United States. While not yet able to handle food waste from the general public, she offers classes that send each student home with a complete worm bin ready to start recycling food waste and paper at home. She invites attendees to return if they are having trouble with their system.
She also offers a sifting service whereby she will sift a home worm bin and return the reset bin to the customer along with a bag of castings. Worm Lady Recycles, though small in scale, is grand in purpose by pointing the way to a sustainable, localized approach to managing common household waste.
If you live in Acadiana, you can find Worm Lady Recycles at the following local farmers’ markets: Hub City Farmers Market, Lafayette Farmers & Artisan Market, and Fightingville Fresh Market. To learn more about WLR products or to schedule a class, field trip, or tour, visit wormladyrecycles.com.
