Couple spread gospel of garbage-eating ‘Wonder Worms’

April 09--APOPKA -- Bernie Moro, 84, scoops up a clot of worm-laden earth with her bare hands and shows off the slimy red creatures that are her passion -- and her livelihood.

She and her husband of 65 years, Carl, 87, raise earthworms on a diet of organic scraps, then sell their nutrient-rich waste as natural fertilizer. The Moros, founders of Our Vital Earth worm farm, are sold on the wiggly recyclers as a way to create healthier and better-tasting food.

They want to convince others, too.

"We care about people," Bernie Moro said. "We care about the environment. What better legacy can we leave to our children than to create a better world for them to live in?"

The Moros are avid ambassadors for composting worms, which experts say are an environmentally friendly way to recycle that can be mastered by homeowners and businesses alike. Among them is Universal Orlando, which uses 12 tons of worm waste annually.

Orange County Extension Agent Ed Thralls said worm manure creates structure in Central Florida's sandy soil, allowing it to hold water and nutrients longer.

"It's a way for you to take your kitchen waste and reuse it in your garden instead of sending it away to a landfill," said Thralls, a horticulture expert.

Rhonda Sherman, president of the North Carolina Composting Council and organizer of an annual worm conference at North Carolina State University, called it "ridiculous to be throwing away food because it's causing climate change and messing up aquatic life."

No one knows how many composting-worm farms exist in the U.S. or how much they contribute to the economy because no one is tracking it, Sherman said. Many are mom-and-pop operations like Our Vital Earth. Worm farms are especially popular in California, where some school cafeterias use it to dispose of leftover food.

In Central Florida, Bernie Moro, wearing her "I've got worms ... How about you?" T-shirt, preaches the gospel of the worms to any community group that will listen. She also wrote a book called "The Life of Wonder Worm," which she uses to teach schoolchildren who visit the farm. The hero, drawn by one of her nine children, Rhonda Moro, is a masked, cape-clad worm.

"Bernie is a great educator, and her enthusiasm is contagious," said Hughette Crumpler, 63, who drove 50 miles from St. Cloud this month to Our Vital Earth with her mother and nephew to stock up on worm products for her garden.

During a recent tour of the farm, Moro demonstrated a plastic "Worm Café" made from recycled car-battery cases and designed for home use. Visitors got a peek at the red-wiggler and yellow-tail earthworms feasting on a buffet of shredded paper, mushrooms, strawberries, oranges, lettuce, tomatoes and kiwi before they burrowed out of sight.

Two pounds of worms gobble 600 pounds of garbage annually and produce 120 pounds of manure and 25 gallons of worm urine, or "tea." Both are sold to enhance plant growth.

"They're lean, mean, eating machines," Bernie Moro said.

Other worms at Our Vital Earth live in raised wood beds, where they dine for 15 weeks on biodegradables such as yard waste, fruit, vegetables, cardboard and paper. They can even eat dryer lint. When they're finished, the worms are dumped into a rotating, cylinder-shaped mesh harvester that separates them from the manure, which is sold for $18.50 to $48 per 25-pound bag, depending on whether it's mixed with cow manure or pure.

Among Moro's customers are Ellen and Jack Batchelor, who own Paradise Orchids in Howey-in-the-Hills. A Worm Café in their kitchen creates "tea" for their orchids and manure for their herbs and their granddaughter's organic garden.

"If you could see the size of these plants and how they take off...," Ellen Batchelor, 59, said. "I love my worms."

The Moros' developed a fondness for worm farming in 2001 while they were running a horticultural incubator and a worm farmer wanted to lease space. Raised in the small farming community of Ste. Geneviéve, Mo., they moved to Apopka in 1960 and worked in the insurance business before finding their true calling.

"I feel that everybody has a purpose," Bernie Moro said. "I feel when you know something that is positive and can help someone else, it should be shared."

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