Glenn Martinez is a bit of a polymath: former military combat photographer, sea captain, organic gardener, carpenter and inventor. Certainly, he’s an enthusiast. As you stroll his five-acre Olomana Gardens, Martinez extols the virtues of his living, growing organic spread, pointing out the features and glories of biodynamics at work.

‘I don’t understand the concept of retirement,’ Martinez says.

There’s the land itself, which he and his wife Liz rent out for weddings and lu’aus. The pond holds the koi that also grows seagrass that they sell to aquatic stores. The frogs that eat the mosquitoes and sometimes end up in local markets. The chickens and ducks produce organic eggs. The horses for riding lessons. Martinez also produces Pallet-sized Organic Gardens, POGs, an invention of his, which produces seasonal vegetables and fruits. But the most valuable commodity at Olomana Gardens is not easily seen. It’s buried in crap. Literally.

Olomana Gardens is O’ahu’s leading supplier of worms. Specifically, the Perionyx excavatus, or ‘Waimanalo Blues,’ a tropical composting worm that recycles garbage and manure into what gardeners call ‘black gold,’ or worm castings, a nutrient rich soil binder that adds fertility to the soil.

Worms are not endemic to O’ahu. Importing worms from the mainland without approval from the Department of Agriculture comes with a serious fine. Even transporting worms across the state can be troublesome. The Martinezs unearthed their initial breeding stock on their property and later purchased more from dealers on other islands.

There are thousands of varieties of earthworms, but the top dwellers, or humus formers, live near the surface and feed on organic materials with great speed and efficiency. The bacteria that live in their gut and deposited through their waste leave their castings virtually pathogen free. In addition, their castings contain humic acids, which allow plants to extract nutrients from the soil, stimulates root growth and helps plants de-stress, according to an article in Worm Digest. And they do this by recycling waste.

Martinez has ‘mountains of worms’ on his land and in specialized tubs and containers for harvesting castings. Approaching a 20-foot long pile of composting horse manure, he says, ‘You smell anything? No. It’s because of the worms.’ He sticks his hand deep–up to his elbow–into the dark brown-and-black pile and pulls out rich earth crawling with squirming worms. ‘This is alive.’

The ‘Waimanalo Blues’ will eat about twice their weight each day in garbage. And they aren’t that picky. Horse manure, chicken manure, rotting vegetables, banana peels, even cardboard and paper. They turn it into a commodity.

Olomana Gardens wholesales its worm castings for $3 a pound. Because worm castings are pathogen free, they can ship castings out of state without worries from the Department of Agriculture. Retail castings run about $5 a pound. The Martinezs also work with Mindy Jaffe, of the Waikiki Worm Company, who gives classes and offers workshops on vermiculture for residential use. They normally sell worms with their worm beds for $40 a pound.

Martinez didn’t start out wanting to be an organic gardener, much less a worm farmer, ‘I didn’t even mow my own grass.’ They purchased Olomana Gardens 10 years ago as a way to reduce expenses by keeping their horses on site, but they were having fly problems. Liz was spending $800 a month to keep her chickens fed. It was not the ‘low maintenance’ property he had imagined.

‘That’s not the way I wanted to spend my retirement check,’ Martinez says. ‘About the time I was about to take the chickens away from my wife, I noticed that there were worms underneath the manure. And the fly situation seemed to be improvingÖWorms kept coming up with the subject of manure. In Costa Rica, Cuba, India. All around the equator, the solution for all the dairies and the like, is they take a tractor and dig a pit about 5-feet wide and 8-feet deep. They fill it with manure and five gallons of worms, and 90 days later, it’s a commercial product, and they sell it.’

Vermiculture and its benefits for the earth has been documented for thousands of years. The Chinese philosopher Xun Zi (310-237 BCE) wrote about the value of earthworms during the Warring States Period. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) believed earthworms played a part in healing the soil. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) studied the worm with zeal.

‘The Romans perfected all of this,’ Martinez says. ‘The Romans documented it. So, I’m not inventing this. I’m just discovering. You know what research means? Re-search, you are doing it all over againÖThey say worms get rediscovered every 200 years.’

Olomana Gardens website
www.olomanagardens.com