December 2008
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Unfortunately NOT an updated picture of the big winter worm bed!
As mentioned in my previous post, I am without my trusty digital camera this week, so unfortunately I can’t provide you with any new pics.
Blubbering aside…
The last couple of days ended up being REALLY important for getting my winter vermicomposting systems in good shape for the cold months ahead.
Did he just says systemS?
That’s right folks – not only did I finish off the big bed at my dad’s place (will be adding more material early next week though), but I even decided to get one of the beds in my yard set up for winter warmth. It won’t be nearly as formidable as the larger bed, but is certainly a huge improvement over its previous state.
It all started with a few days of relatively warm weather (and lots of rain). Not only did the rain wash away much of the snow – thus exposing some of the beds in my yard – but it also started to thaw out the manure sitting in the bins waiting to be transported over to my dad’s place. Add to that the fact that the new lack of snow suddenly made my yard into serious eyesore (garbage bins + bales of straw + piles of manure – you do the math – lol), so that certainly didn’t hurt when it came to convincing my wife of the importance of my (holiday weekend) winter composting operation.
Aside from coinciding with mild weather, the completion of the big bed also came at a time when the system was starting to warm up quite nicely on its own. My dad took some temperature readings late last week and the middle of the pile was 15 C (59 F) – a major improvement over the last readings I took. It was much cooler around the edges, but this doesn’t concern me at all – as long as I can create a nice warm (and expanding) core, I know there will be no trouble warming up the entire system over time. There is plenty more material to add, and also a lot that can be done to make the walls a little more snug (filling in gaps etc), so I think we are in really good shape now.
Despite partially thawing in the bins, the manure was a bit of a chore to work with. Thankfully it was very easy to get it out (since the outermost region was where thawing took place), but it took some effort to break it up and spread it out. We only ended up adding half of the bins to the pile, opting to put the rest in my dad’s basement for now. To add some more insulation value, we topped up the bed with straw from two bales. I’m pretty sure the warmer temps in the middle zone, combined with the added insulation will cause the rest of the manure in the heap to thaw out. Adding lots of warm material next week will certainly help as well.
As for my smaller bed (formerly known as the ‘Sandbox Self-Fertilizing Garden‘)…
In all honesty, I hadn’t planned to do anything more with it. Winter swept in before I’d had a chance to really protect it from the cold, so I figured I’d just let sleeping worms lie…until spring, that is. Seeing it fully exposed once again, and knowing I still had the better part of a cubic yard of manure (plus bales of straw) sitting in my driveway, I decided it might not be a bad idea to revisit my original plan.
I first added some of the manure to the long vermicomposting trench that runs the length of the fence (yet another bed with no real winter protection), but still managed to get a good mound piled up on the main bed – along with some fall leaves, a lot of food waste and the straw from one bale (added over top for insulation).
I ended up doing most of the work last night, during undoubtedly one the craziest wind storms we’ve seen this year. It is truly a miracle I was able to accomplish what I did. Try working with massive tarp (which needed to be folded multiple times), loose straw, and loose leaves in a serious wind storm and you’ll see what I mean.
It was actually lot of fun though, and it felt really good to get that bed ready for winter. Interestingly enough, despite the fact that the top few inches of the bed were frozen solid (although easily broken up), down below I found lots of active worms – I can only imagine how active the bed will become now. Unfortunately, it won’t be nearly as accessible as the worm bed at my dad’s place, but I’m sure I’ll check up on it at least a few times over the next couple of months – and even more importantly, it should stay quite active, leaving me with a large, thriving population of wigglers by the time spring rolls around!
Previous Winter Worm Composting Posts
Winter Composting Extravaganza 2.0
Winter Worm Composting – 12-08-08
Winter Worm Composting – 12-15-08
Written by Bentley on December 30th, 2008 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Large-Scale Vermicomposting and Winter Composting.
We’re definitely overdue for another ‘Worm Inn Journal’ update (and new posts on the blog in general). Certainly a couple interesting developments to report on.
In a previous post I mentioned that some fruit flies had started hatching from the Inn. Well, that minor invasion seemed to disappear quite quickly, only to be replaced by a fungus gnat invasion.
What’s interesting is the fact that – although certainly more serious than the fruit fly situation – the gnat population has yet to explode the way they have in the past. There is a far great chance of this happening with fungus gnats since they don’t rely on food waste for sustenance.
Any moist decomposing organic matter seems serve as suitable fodder for the larvae – in other words, it is next to impossible to completely cut off the food supply, as can be done with fruit flies.
I suspect once again, that the robust ecosystem in the Inn is playing an important role in keeping the gnat population in check. Given the vast quantities (relatively speaking) of decomposing matter in the system, I really don’t think that competition from the worms plays as important a role as it may have in the decline of the fruit fly population.
In other Worm Inn news…
I’ve actually decided to start up a second Worm Inn. I’ve been so pleased with my first Inn that I decided to test out another one using only…drumroll please… European Nightcrawlers!! I’ll be really interested to see how the two systems compare.
Speaking of Euros – I am planning to start my ‘Euro Shipping Sale’ next week, so if you’ve been thinking about trying these big composting worms out for yourself, this could be a good opportunity to do so!
By the way – in case you are wondering why I’m using one of Robyn’s images for this post, rather than showing off the new set-up – unfortunately, I left my camera at my sister-in-law’s place (more than an hour away) the other day, and won’t likely be able to get it back for at least a week.
As such, the blog will likely be a little ‘plain Jane’ this week. The timing of this probably couldn’t be much worse, since I have a lot of cool vermi-things going. Uggggghhhhh!!
Oh well – the show must go on!
Written by Bentley on December 30th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Worm Bins and Worm Inn.
OK, so I spoke too soon!
It might not have been the best idea to try and schedule my manure hauling just before a huge winter storm hit! I ended up getting caught up with other important tasks on Thursday and, well…haven’t really had much opportunity for good driving conditions ever since!
Anyway, there IS still more white stuff on the way, but I’m really hoping to at least get the materials over to my dad’s place in the next couple of days so we can start warming up the manure again. I’m hopeful that all this snow will at least provide a good thick layer of insulation for the bed in the meantime.
This is going to be a pretty busy week on the Christmas front, so not sure how much I’ll be posting. I should get at least one or two posts up though. Believe it or not, I actually posted something over at CompostGuy recently that you may want to check out. It is an update on my ‘Sandbox Self-fertilizing Garden’ – which employed one of my vermicomposting trenches. Speaking of which, I am hoping to provide a final wrap-up for the vermi-trench series.
Talk soon.
Written by Bentley on December 22nd, 2008 with 4 comments.
Read more articles on Announcements.
Horse manure (in bins and under tarp) and straw bales – a winter worm composter’s best friends…apart from the worms, that is!
Just a quick update for all y’all. Earlier in the week my farmer friend dropped off 2 cubic yards of partially aged horse manure and 12 bales of straw. Today I’ll be transporting as much as I can over to my dad’s place, where we will first attempt to warm up the material (in bins, in his basement), then add the vast majority of it to the worm bed, layered with and then covered with straw.
Not sure if I’ll have the chance to wrote more this week unfortunately, but you can expect to see an update soon!
Written by Bentley on December 18th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Announcements.
Hi Everyone – another quick winter vermicomposting update. On Friday I managed to get over to my dad’s to work on our big worm bed a little more. I was hoping to see the temperatures in the bed a little higher due to the piling of the materials, so you can imagine my disappointment upon discovering that the temps had actually gone DOWN! I couldn’t find any zones in the 10 C (50 F) range – most of the spots I checked were hovering around 5 degrees C (41 F)!
We had a freeze-thaw cycle with some rain fall since the last time I was there, and there was a decent pool of water (with a layer of ice on it) up on top of the tarp (see image).
If you are ever looking for a cheap way to create your own make-shift pool in the summer, I recommend erecting some straw bale walls, making a mold inside with some soft soil, then simply laying in a heavy duty tarp (lighter colours would obviously be best). It might be a bit of an eyesore, but hey you’ll stay cool, right?
Back to composting…
I took a tub of food waste (mixed with compost) with me to bury in the middle – thinking it might help to stimulate some heating. We also added a couple buckets of manure, but my optimism was certainly waning by the time I left. I know all too well what can happen once temps are down this low – it is VERY difficult to stimulate natural heating. Just as a huge mass like this will tend to hold heat well, so too will it hold the cold. I also realized that aside from needing a LOT more material to help start the warming process, we just need a lot more to fill in the bed in general and mound the heap up a little so water doesn’t pool on the tarp. There is no point using straw bale walls if the material inside isn’t snug up against them (and obviously no benefit if there isn’t any heat to keep in).
All that being said, believe it or not, things are really starting to look up. My dad and I have been looking into the possibility of using eavestrough heating cables to at least provide some artificial assistance until the temps start warming up enough to get the microbes going – I think this might be just the solution we are looking for. Apart from that, this week I’ve been able to arrange with a farmer friend to get a shipment of straw bales (enough to finish the bed off) plus a cubic yard of manure, which should be enough to really fill in the bed and get things going! I’m pretty excited.
I’m optimistic that the bed will be in much better shape by the time the weekend arrives, and will certainly keep everyone posted!
Previous Winter Worm Composting Posts
Winter Composting Extravaganza 2.0
Winter Worm Composting – 12-08-08
Written by Bentley on December 16th, 2008 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Large-Scale Vermicomposting and Worm Farming.
Here is a question from Bobby:
I need to build a new outdoor bin is better to build it now
while it is cold or wait until spring. This is a great site didn’t
know there were so many worm enthusiast.
Hi Bobby,
This is a great question. I would say that now (as in any time in the fall/winter) is definitely the best time to set up an outdoor bed, but it really does depend on what you are trying to do and where you are located.
I am currently setting up a winter worm bed with the intention of breeding lots of worms in time for Spring (when demand for worms will likely be considerably higher). I’m still not 100% sure how successful I’m going to be in terms of generating enough warmth to keep the worms active, but I am very optimistic.
If you are located in the far north (eg. northern Minnesota, Alaska etc), it might make more sense to start something indoors and wait until spring to set up an outdoor system. Although, that being said, I’m sure I would be determined to find away to create an active outdoor worm bin in those regions as well if I lived there! (I’m stubborn like that)
Even a system that stays very cool is going to be much better than no system at all – all sorts of microbes can decompose materials (albeit more slowly) at lower temps than you might expect, and Red Worms are very cold tolerant, so they will stay at least semi-active as long as temps stay above the freezing mark in the bedding. This way, as the weather starts to warm up a bit (you can help the process by putting a black tarp over the bed) in the Spring the worms will get really active and start breeding like crazy. In other words you will have a serious headstart on getting a thriving system going – and you’ll likely need fewer worms to get started as well.
If you are located in an area that gets snow and typical winter weather in general, you’d certainly be better off building an insulated system. Straw bales are an excellent – and relatively inexpensive – building material. Aside from their incredible insulating properties, they offer the advantage of being easily movable, so you can change the dimensions/shape etc at any time. They will also help to insulate the bed from excess heat in the summer. Yet another advantage of this material is that it will also be a fantastic long term food source and habitat for the worms.
Apart from insulation, you will also need a heat source – something that is relatively easy to achieve with a large volume of organic materials, the right C:N range, enough oxygen – and of course the assistance from countless microbes. In other words, a cold weather system should generally be larger, and receive more ‘food’ than a warmer climate system.
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on December 11th, 2008 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Reader Questions.
My dad buries our remote temperature sensor in the heap
Yesterday, my dad and I were able to dedicate an hour or so to our winter worm bed. Not nearly as much time as I would have liked, but a LOT better than nothing. Since writing my last winter composting post I decided that our bed needed to be reduced in size so we could make it a little more snug and reduce the number of straw bales needed to build the walls. Aside from that, the smaller bed will be much easier to access (without the need to climb right in). As you can see above, we still do not have enough bales, but I’m happy with our progress nevertheless. The heap as it is now should be able to generate warmth much more readily than it could with the materials spread out so much.
Raking materials over to one side for our smaller bed
Moving half the bed over was not an easy task, and actually remains incomplete since I ran out of time. Those of you who have followed the Compost Guy site may recall the “Jumbo Garbage Garden” that my dad and I set up in the summer – back when I was trying to deal with large quantities of restaurant food waste. We started by creating trenches in the soil, then adding lots of cardboard and food waste before filling them back in with dirt. Over top of our multiple trenches we added a considerable amount of brush (with lots of woody materials) – this would essentially act as a ‘false bottom’, helping to draw air in from below the composting mass. Over the brush we layered cardboard, food waste and straw – this was intended to be the worm zone.
Since then, we’ve added plenty more food waste, straw, aged manure and leaves on top – plenty of good stuff to get our worm bed going. What’s really interesting is that as we moved materials over from the one side we discovered that the zones with the highest concentrations of worms were actually the trenches down below the soil. I wouldn’t have thought the oxygen concentration would be high enough down there, but Red Worms never cease to surprise me!
This year, rather than making my dad take trips out to the heap with a compost thermometer, we thought we would try a different approach. Last Christmas he gave me a remote thermometer device – generally intended to monitor outdoor temps and humidity from the comfort of your home. We are hoping it might work well as a remote compost thermometer as well. We sealed it up in a plastic bag with some dry cardboard and buried it in the heap. So far the results haven’t been all that exciting, and we are now wondering if the unit is going to work for us at all.
When in doubt, it never hurts to break out the trusty long-shaft compost thermometer to take readings manually. When we did so recently we saw temps in the range of 5-10 degrees C (41-50 F) – certainly not as warm as I’d like, but really not too shabby given the fact that the materials hadn’t yet been piled up and we are well into freezing winter weather now. I suspect that once the bed is enclosed with straw bales, and more organic matter is added it should warm up quite nicely. I am hoping to add a large quantity of fresh manure to the heap to help kickstart the warming trend. I have also been stock-piling food scraps at home for the purpose of adding them to this bed at some point as well.
Yesterday, before putting the tarp over top we added a layer of alfalfa straw on top of the heap – this should help to add some insulation, while gradually becoming a valuable food source for the worms.
I am hoping to finish up our winter worm bed in the near future – although I’m not sure when we’ll be able to get a hold of 10 more bales of straw. In the meantime, I suspect that the worms will be totally fine now that their habitat has been piled up and partially insulated.
Anyway – I’ll definitely keep you posted!
Previous Winter Worm Composting Posts
Winter Composting Extravaganza 2.0
Written by Bentley on December 8th, 2008 with 13 comments.
Read more articles on Large-Scale Vermicomposting and Worm Farming.
As some of you may recall, about a year ago I started up my “Four Worm Reproduction Experiment“. Although I didn’t spend enough time tending to the system (surprise, surprise – haha), the results were quite interesting. Over the course of 5 months or so, the worm population underwent a 25+ fold expansion (I counted 106 worms, but certainly would have missed some). Pretty impressive – although the vast majority of worms were still very young.
Anyway, I haven’t written all that much about the wooden stacking bin I used for the experiment, so I thought it might not be a bad idea to update everyone about that system. Once the experiment was officially over, I continued to add food and water to the bin in an effort to use it the way it was intended (ie. by actually adding additional trays etc). Initially, I was a little frustrated with the system’s tendency to dry out really quickly, as well as the trouble I had trying to keep it free of fungus gnats and/or fruit flies. Thankfully, adding the parasitic nematodes did seem to help.
Once I had secured a large supply of the aged horse manure (with bedding) – which has been all the talk of the blog for the last few months it seems (haha) – I found myself enjoying the stacking system much more. The aged manure was an excellent bedding/food and it also contained lots of baby worms and cocoons. I noticed activity in the bin increasing by leaps and bounds. I found the material to be great for burying food waste as well, and no longer had serious issues with gnats or fruit flies. In no time at all I was up to the final (5th) tray and ready to evaluate the end result.
The material left behind in the lower trays looked quite good (with a fair amount of resistant debris understandably still intact). Interestingly enough, the best material wasn’t in the lowermost tray, which had totally dried out and still had lots of organic matter not yet decomposed. The second and third trays on the other hand both had a nice dark, uniform looking material – undoubtedly, at least partially due to the fact that my bedding (aged manure) was already pretty uniform stuff.
As expected, most of the worms were up in the top two trays where there was more moisture and better food resources. I harvested most of the larger bodied worms (ie not the infants – haha) and ended up with about 3/4 lb of fairly small Red Wigglers. At one time or another there had actually been some Blue Worms (Perionyx excavatus – more on them in an upcoming post) in the system, but I wasn’t able to find any.
All in all, I’d say that the system worked quite well. On the positive side, it was very easy to use and provided excellent aeration, thus aiding the production of high quality vermicompost. Again, the main negatives included the need to keep it moist and the tendency of the trays to easily become infested with pest flies.
The system now sits empty. I’m sure I’ll come with some sort of fun way to put it to use in the near future though (suggestions welcome). And as per usual, I’ll keep all of you posted!
Written by Bentley on December 5th, 2008 with 11 comments.
Read more articles on Worm Bins.
I have a really important update for all those thinking about buying Red Worms (from me) in the next little while. My worms have informed me that they are starting their Christmas holidays early this year, and after this week won’t be available for sale until the New Year (I guess Red Worms need a break every now and again too!). SO, you’ll need to get your orders in by 3 pm EST on Saturday December 6th if you want Red Worms in 2008. Unfortunately we can’t arrange for any delayed shipments after the week of December 8th (eg ordering now and getting the worms shipped during the week of the 15th etc).
I’m still in negotiations with the European Nightcrawler union boss – things are looking more promising on that front – who knows…perhaps we might even be able to organize a Euro sale! I’ll keep you posted.
Written by Bentley on December 3rd, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Announcements.
Hopefully the very last bag of cat litter waste I send to the landfill!
I’ve decided to start adding dates to my cat litter composting posts – like my Worm Inn Journal, this is going to be an ongoing series, so I’ll need some way to differentiate between them.
Yesterday was a big day on this front. After once again becoming annoyed with stinky-cat-litter-smell while down in the basement, I finally decided to completely dump out the litter box with the normal clumping cat litter in it. Enough is enough – I’ve decided to switch completely over to the earth-friendly stuff. The cats have responded very well to it, and it has also been working incredibly well in general thus far (little odour, absorbent, easy to work with etc). I was initially a little concerned with the high cost of it (in comparison to the clay litter), but I’m actually starting to think that it might cost less in the long run. I found that we went through the regular clumping cat litter quite quickly, whereas this seems to be lasting longer (only time will tell though).
Both litter boxes are now filled with PC Green Clumping Litter
I made sure to take in the experience as my eyes and nasal passage burned (due to the ammonia) during my litter dumping. It may very well be the last time I’ll have to deal with that so I wanted to remember it well (haha)! I also took a picture (shown at the top of post) of the big ol’ bag of dirty litter I hope will be the last I send to the landfill. I actually have a full, unopened box of the regular clumping cat litter, which I thought I would get through before switching completely, but I think I’ll be passing that along to my dad to use for his cat (before I convert him to a green litter user, that is!).
As for my litter vermicomposting experiment…
I have been collecting waste from the one litter box and storing it in an empty (resealable) litter bag. I figured what better time to start up my litter composting bin that on the night I switch completely to the new litter!
I am definitely going to start slowly, and on a small scale, with this cat litter composting. This is new territory for me, so I want to make sure I don’t end up with a stinky mess on my hands. As such, I decided to use one of my small Rubbermaid tubs (3 or 4 gal, I think). I won’t be using a lid for this bin so as to allow any noxious gases (namely ammonia) to escape without harming the worms, and generally so as to provide lots of oxygen.
I started by mixing together (and moistening) some shredded corrugated cardboard, fall leaves, coconut coir and compost. Initially my goal is to create a good worm habitat. This will provide the worms with a protective retreat should the conditions in the litter zone be unpleasant for them.
Next I added a modest layer of cat litter waste. I wanted enough to get us started, but (hopefully) not so much as to create nasty conditions in the bin. I made sure to moisten this layer fairly well since these materials tend to be quite dry.
I then covered the litter with a layer of moistened coir. This should help to balance the C:N and filter out any undesirable odours
Lastly, I added more shredded cardboard and compost, with a final layer of leaves over top for good measure!
The ‘compost’ material contains some worms and cocoons, but other than that I have not actually stocked the system with worms yet. I will likely let it sit for a week or so to get the decomposition process rolling nicely.
So there you have it! We are off to the races.
I’ll keep you posted!
Note: Cat litter composting warrants some caution, and should generally only be attempted by those with previous composting experience. Any dog or cat waste composting system should be separate from your ‘regular’ composting systems. Cat litter shouldn’t be handled at all by pregnant women or young children.
Written by Bentley on December 2nd, 2008 with 6 comments.
Read more articles on Home Vermicomposting.
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282 lb of Food Waste, and Counting!