Nincompoop is the world's first Eco-Friendly, Weed-Resistant Organic Mulch. It amends your soil by providing food for your worms while retaining 3-times its weight in moisture! It provides complete weed resistance (when applied properly).
We produce it with the smallest carbon-footprint as possible, we package it in "blue-box" recyclable bags, and it is the ultimate re-use of waste product; everything that goes into Nincompoop would otherwise go to waste.
Nincompoop is the answer to gardening the natural way, farmers have used manure to revitalize their fields for years, we have used that principle as a guideline when creating Nincompoop! Yes, the major component of Nincompoop is manure, however we aerate and dehydrate it to remove the odours associated with manure, but this process does not jeopardize the nutrients. Manure is typically very "weedy" since animals' stomachs do not completely digest their food and thus the seeds end up in their manure...into your garden. We counter this problem with pasteurization and sterilization. The same process that kills the harmful bacteria and disease in milk is used to protect your gardens! There are no weeds in Nincompoop right from our farm!
Nincompoop decomposes into "Black Earth." The ingredients in Nincompoop are the perfect worm food...feed your worms to feed your earth. Ultimately, it takes worms to make a healthy garden and Nincompoop will feed them, worms and microbial action transforms Nincompoop into rich "Black Earth." Typically, it takes one growing season for the mulch to decompose into rich black humus. Your worms will love Nincompoop!
An article about the product from the KW Record :
Mulch product has the smell of a winner
Nincompoop Tim Schneider (left) and Lew Bauman get a lot of laughs over the name of their business, Nincompoop, which sells manure-based mulches, compost and lawn dressing.
- Philip Walker, Record staff
MARYHILL — Tim Schneider and Lew Bauman call themselves “entre-manures.”
They own a company called Nincompoop and with a name like that, it pays to have a sense of humour.
They’ve heard every dung, poop and excrement joke in the book. Many of them aren’t printable.
“We want to poop on your garden,” is one of their slogans. Another is “we make poop look pretty.”
Their company sells a line of mulches, compost and lawn dressing made up largely of horse and poultry manure. Hence the name Nincompoop.
Hatched during a late-night coffee session, the name is a combination of the words nitrogen, composting and poop, explains Schneider. Their mulch encourages worms to produce nitrogen in the soil rather than sucking it out and reintroducing it as most regular mulches do, he says.
Their product might stink, but in some places it smells like a winner.
Since launching Nincompoop in 2009, Schneider and Bauman have managed to pick up such customers as the cities of Kitchener and Brampton, Grand River Raceway, Grobe Nursery near Breslau and Meadow Acres Garden Centre near New Dundee.
The company has tripled sales every year and aims to boost annual revenues to $1 million by the end of the 2012 gardening season, says Schneider. “We’re at the tipping point to profitability.”
Not bad when you consider the company was started “by two sick guys wanting to do something,” he says.
Schneider worked in sales and sold yearbooks until he developed chronic fatigue syndrome and kidney disease. His nephew, Andrew Schneider, trained truck drivers until becoming injured when a student rolled a vehicle with him in it.
The two were sitting around “licking their wounds” one day when Andrew inquired about the immaculate flower beds tended by Tim’s wife at their Waterloo home. The secret was a manure-based concoction Tim had come up with about 15 years ago, using his knowledge growing up on a farm.
Why not try to sell the stuff on a wider scale, Andrew suggested.
The pair enlisted the help of Bauman, a dairy farmer near West Montrose and Tim’s brother-in-law. Together, the three spent the first year experimenting with different mixes.
Tim describes the finished product as a mix of horse and poultry manure, straw and “as Colonel Sanders would say, seven different herbs and spices.”
Horse and poultry manure can be very weedy, but the trio came up with a mixture that not only is wood- and weed-free, it prevents other weeds from taking root as well, says Schneider.
Its ability to inhibit weed growth and hold moisture is a major selling feature for cities looking to cut labour costs, he says.
Renting barn space near Maryhill, buying a huge mixer, trucks, bags and other equipment required a major capital investment.
“It was tough. No bank in the world would touch us,” admits Bauman, but the trio managed to secure a loan from the Waterloo-Wellington Community Futures Development Corp., which helps rural businesses get started.
The first customer they approached was Home Hardware. Schneider had worked at the retail chain in the 1980s and knew co-founder Walter Hachborn. It got them an audience with Home Hardware’s buying group.
Home Hardware liked Nincompoop and wanted to buy a lot of it, until they discovered it couldn’t pass the sniff test, Schneider says. The mulch developed odours if kept longer than two weeks in plastic bags. Selling it retail on a mass scale was out of the question.
Plan B was making the rounds of landscaping trade shows. Potential customers were impressed, but didn’t know how to place it. This was horse manure of a different colour.
“Everybody wants new. Everybody wants innovative. Then when they get it, they go, ‘What do we do with it?’ ” says Schneider.
But a few nurseries in the area and in Greater Toronto “jumped on it right away,” purchasing quantities they could move quickly, says Bauman.
Charles Schachinger, co-owner of Meadow Acres Garden Centre, says the product has sold well with landscapers, who buy in bulk, and homeowners, who prefer smaller quantities. “In this field, you’re always looking for premium products that set you apart. This seems to be one of them.”
The company has five employees in total and is run out of Schneider’s Waterloo home and the Maryhill-area farm. Other farms in the area provide the manure.
Article courtesy of The Kitchener Record
They own a company called Nincompoop and with a name like that, it pays to have a sense of humour.
They’ve heard every dung, poop and excrement joke in the book. Many of them aren’t printable.
“We want to poop on your garden,” is one of their slogans. Another is “we make poop look pretty.”
Their company sells a line of mulches, compost and lawn dressing made up largely of horse and poultry manure. Hence the name Nincompoop.
Hatched during a late-night coffee session, the name is a combination of the words nitrogen, composting and poop, explains Schneider. Their mulch encourages worms to produce nitrogen in the soil rather than sucking it out and reintroducing it as most regular mulches do, he says.
Their product might stink, but in some places it smells like a winner.
Since launching Nincompoop in 2009, Schneider and Bauman have managed to pick up such customers as the cities of Kitchener and Brampton, Grand River Raceway, Grobe Nursery near Breslau and Meadow Acres Garden Centre near New Dundee.
The company has tripled sales every year and aims to boost annual revenues to $1 million by the end of the 2012 gardening season, says Schneider. “We’re at the tipping point to profitability.”
Not bad when you consider the company was started “by two sick guys wanting to do something,” he says.
Schneider worked in sales and sold yearbooks until he developed chronic fatigue syndrome and kidney disease. His nephew, Andrew Schneider, trained truck drivers until becoming injured when a student rolled a vehicle with him in it.
The two were sitting around “licking their wounds” one day when Andrew inquired about the immaculate flower beds tended by Tim’s wife at their Waterloo home. The secret was a manure-based concoction Tim had come up with about 15 years ago, using his knowledge growing up on a farm.
Why not try to sell the stuff on a wider scale, Andrew suggested.
The pair enlisted the help of Bauman, a dairy farmer near West Montrose and Tim’s brother-in-law. Together, the three spent the first year experimenting with different mixes.
Tim describes the finished product as a mix of horse and poultry manure, straw and “as Colonel Sanders would say, seven different herbs and spices.”
Horse and poultry manure can be very weedy, but the trio came up with a mixture that not only is wood- and weed-free, it prevents other weeds from taking root as well, says Schneider.
Its ability to inhibit weed growth and hold moisture is a major selling feature for cities looking to cut labour costs, he says.
Renting barn space near Maryhill, buying a huge mixer, trucks, bags and other equipment required a major capital investment.
“It was tough. No bank in the world would touch us,” admits Bauman, but the trio managed to secure a loan from the Waterloo-Wellington Community Futures Development Corp., which helps rural businesses get started.
The first customer they approached was Home Hardware. Schneider had worked at the retail chain in the 1980s and knew co-founder Walter Hachborn. It got them an audience with Home Hardware’s buying group.
Home Hardware liked Nincompoop and wanted to buy a lot of it, until they discovered it couldn’t pass the sniff test, Schneider says. The mulch developed odours if kept longer than two weeks in plastic bags. Selling it retail on a mass scale was out of the question.
Plan B was making the rounds of landscaping trade shows. Potential customers were impressed, but didn’t know how to place it. This was horse manure of a different colour.
“Everybody wants new. Everybody wants innovative. Then when they get it, they go, ‘What do we do with it?’ ” says Schneider.
But a few nurseries in the area and in Greater Toronto “jumped on it right away,” purchasing quantities they could move quickly, says Bauman.
Charles Schachinger, co-owner of Meadow Acres Garden Centre, says the product has sold well with landscapers, who buy in bulk, and homeowners, who prefer smaller quantities. “In this field, you’re always looking for premium products that set you apart. This seems to be one of them.”
The company has five employees in total and is run out of Schneider’s Waterloo home and the Maryhill-area farm. Other farms in the area provide the manure.
Article courtesy of The Kitchener Record
