“We’ve got a lot of poop,”says Corki Schuhwerk (left), the store manager of Worm’s Way Missouri (1225 N. Warson, 314-994-3900, wormsway.com). Specifically, the store stocks fish feces, bat guano, and worm waste—all of which goes into your garden to help your plants grow.
An employee-owned national chain, Worm’s Way got its start in 1985 as a bait shop in Indiana. Today, its emphasis is on sustainable gardening, with a particular focus on hydroponics, or growing your plants in water with nutrients added.
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To be clear, this is not aquaponics, which Schuhwerk defines as “growing plants with fish poop—which I have in bottles.”
The advantage of hydroponics over traditional gardening, she explains, is up to 30 percent faster plant growth. And since the systems are indoors, you can garden 12 months a year. One popular method is the “ebb-and-flow system,” Schuhwerk says. “There is a water pump in the reservoir with water and nutrients in it, and it floods the tray [holding the plants] a couple of times during the day for about 15 minutes at a time.” Grow lights hang above the tray.
“If you want to grow tomatoes and peppers in the winter, you can do this in your basement,” she says.
To set up a basic ebb-and-flow system, Schuhwerk says, you need lights, a tray, a pump, and a reservoir, which is filled with water and nutrients every couple of weeks. Another type of hydroponic system, dubbed “drain to waste,” results in even faster plant growth, even though the excess nutrient-laden water is allowed to drain away. The plants are set in moisture-retaining coconut fiber, a.k.a. coir, which is a renewable resource.
For the beginning vegetable gardener, Schuhwerk suggests fluorescent lights, ranging from $27 to more than $200, to get seedlings started. To strengthen the stems, she suggests adding fans, also available at Worm’s Way. Among myriad items, the shop sells timers, soil testers, propagation kits, plant-cloning machines, composters, seedling trays, seed-starter plugs, seedling heat mats, soils, worm farms, and a large assortment of organic soil additives. The shop also holds classes.
“For any kind of garden that you may have, we have a fertilizer for it,” Schuhwerk says. “We’ve got it all.”
