Frank LaBounty knows how to keep his worms happy.
Just don’t let them freeze.
Now in his fourth year selling red wigglers worms and their castings, LaBounty is a regular vendor at the Prince George Farmer’s Market and his Frank’s Happy Worms business has taken off.
He sells them as bait for fishermen and also sells worm castings which is highly-nourishing natural fertilizer that produces amazing results for gardeners.
It started as a hobby for LaBounty and that caught the imagination of his grandchildren who gave him the inspiration for the name of his business.
“I used to do it as a kid, for fishing worms,” said LaBounty,” who grew up on a farm in Hixon. “My granddaughter was four years old and her and I started collecting worms but they didn’t want to live, so I went online and found these red wigglers that are a lot better. I bought 500 of those, half a pound, from a woman in Vanderhoof, and it took off from there.”
Now known around local gardening circles as The Worm Guy, LaBounty keeps his worms, hundreds of thousands of them, in 15 three-tiered bins in the garage next to his house on the North Nechako neighbourhood on Summerset Place. Each bin, when full, holds between 8,000 and 10,000 worms.
“I know I don’t have that many in them because I’ve sold lots this summer,” he said.
It takes about three months for the worms to double their population.
Earthworms are hermaphroditic which means they each have male and female sex organs. Red wigglers grow to about five or six inches in length, similar in width to a common earthworm, and they are known for their composting ability.
LaBounty feeds them kitchen scraps such as vegetable and fruit peelings, egg cartons, cardboard and newsprint.
He lets the castings collect for about six months before he collects it to fill two-pound bags that sell for $10 each. He sells an average 20 bags each week.
“It’s amazing stuff for growing plants,” he said. “If you go online, there’s a guy in Alaska who grew world-record vegetables and all he used was worm castings and he made a worm team liquid fertilizer.
“I’ve got one bin where I put a bunch of worm casting two years ago and it just grows amazing every year. I’ve done tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers and things like that. I sell to a lot of women my age and once they buy one bag it makes such a difference and within a week they’re back buying more.”
He just ordered three more bins to try to keep up with the demand.
For fishing, he’ll sell 12 or 18 worms for $5.
For composting, he sells one pound for $80, half a pound for $40 and a quarter-pound for $25. It takes about 1,000 worms to make a pound.
“I’ve been doing well with it, it’s quite surprising, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” said LaBounty. “I’m expanding because everyone wants it.
“Fishermen are being disappointed with the (dew worms) they buy from the gas station because they go out to the lake and they find they’re half dead. Mine, you just keep them in a bucket of dirt and they’re fine, but the dew worms you have to keep them colder.”
Red wigglers don’t like cold weather and unlike regular earthworms they stay close to the surface and don’t dig themselves deep enough into the soil (eight or 10 feet) to avoid the frost line. But according to LaBounty, wriggler eggs can take being frozen and some of his customers have reported they did come back in the spring.
He overwinters his worm bins in the garage and won’t allow the temperature to drop below freezing, using baseboard heaters. If it gets down to -30 C he has to use a propane heater to keep them alive.
LaBounty, who turns 58 on Friday, is also a national-level wheelchair curler who has won four national championships and three national silver medals representing the Prince George Golf and Curling Club. The numbers of local curlers in his sport tailed off after he won his last national title in 2015 and he took a few years off but he plans to get back into competitive curling this season, teaming up with wheelchair curlers based in Vancouver.
LaBounty lost the use of his legs in 1998 in a logging accident when the chain of a wood processor he was operating broke and came through the cab and hit him in the neck.
