About

It's a bit long but I think it tells my story pretty well.

I first became interested in growing organic vegetables in 1990 when I worked at Whole Foods Market in Richardson Texas. But I didn’t get started growing until 1998, after my family and I had been back in Amarillo for several years. In 1999 we received our organic certification and began selling at Golden Spread Farmers Market. The next 3 years brought good success mixed with some very tough times. At the end of the season in 2001, we made the decision to cut back substantially and just grow tomatoes in our small greenhouse, along with a few other items outside.

In early 2002, I took a job as a roofing salesman and was happily moving forward to the next chapter in my life. On April 2, things took a dramatic turn when I fell off my mountain bike and broke my neck, instantly paralyzing me from the chest down. I spent the next two years adjusting to life in the wheelchair. In 2004, as a summer job, my son Ryan chose to grow tomatoes in our small greenhouse, along with several varieties of vegetables outside, and sold at farmers market. After he had a successful season, I began thinking of restarting the farm. Ryan was on board as well as my wife, my brother Jeff and my Mom and Dad.  So, we began planning to be ready for farmers market the next summer.

One of the first things my mom asked was "can we raise worms"? Her dad, my grandpapa, raised red wiggler worms and sold them as fishing bait and that's something I remembered almost 35 years later.  Of course, I said yes, and I dove into the research on red wigglers. I already knew the benefit of earthworms in soil, but I really wanted to know how the reds would benefit us and how to best take care of them. After learning all the positives, I was all in. It took us took us a year though to develop a system of raising them, that worked well for us.  We started our worm row outside using horse manure as bedding. 

In 2006 we grew and harvested 3000 pounds of yellow squash per week for about 6 weeks, most of which we sold to Market Street and 45th St. United here in Amarillo. As you might imagine, growing that amount squash there was certainly a fair amount of it that was unsellable. So, after harvest, we took that waste, chopped it up and fed it to the worms.  They loved it! We continued that practice over the next 15 years. We would harvest the castings either late fall or early spring and work them into the vegetable beds prior to planting.  They were also an integral part of seedling mixes.

Fast forward to the end of the season in 2021, we made the decision to shut the vegetable farm down and began raising worms. Much like our first year with worms in 05, it has taken us a while to learn how to breed the worms, harvest the cocoons and provide the correct environment for them to hatch and mature into adults. 

We’ll that pretty much tells how I got to this point. As of mid- January, I currently have 24 breeder trays and we harvest cocoons from 8 trays each week. We have 56 trays of cocoons/juveniles, 100 plus lbs. of adults and approximately 90 ft. of windrow that we’re using to produce castings.  

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Thanks,

Ronnie Kimbrell
Cimarron Organics Worm Farm
Amarillo, TX