February 2009
You are currently browsing the articles from Red Worm Composting written in the month of February 2009.
Here are a couple questions from Leslie:
hello, I started my bin about a month ago and I wanted to know two things-
how much kitchen scrap (in lbs? or kg..) can 1000 worms handle (in an approximately 2 ft x 4 ft bin) per week? Also, how soon before the worms start reproducing? I’m concerned about too little or too much intervention with the worms so any guidance is greatly appreciated. Thanks! -Leslie
Hi Leslie,
Those are really good question (some things a LOT of people are wondering about, I’m sure), but the first one is also a tough question to give a firm answer for. One of the challenges of vermicomposting is that there are SO MANY variables that can influence the success of your worm bin, and the overall health and well-being of your worms. As such, trying to come up with absolutes based on various calculations can be pretty challenging – at least for the average worm bin owner.
What you do with your waste materials (before putting them in the bin) ALONE can have a massive impact on the productivity of your bin. Obviously, if you add your wastes simply as they become available, without taking any steps to help the process along, you will end up with a bin full of undecomposed material pretty quickly.
If on the other hand you freeze your waste materials or let them age for a period of time, then blend them up before adding them, you will greatly speed up the process, thus effectively boosting the processing power of your worms.
The type of waste can also have a significant impact on the quantity of waste that can be added every x number of days. Tests using highly optimized professional flow-through reactors have shown that worms can potentially consume 4-6 times their own weight in food PER DAY! I should mention that these numbers are based on consumption of grocery store produce waste (similar to homeowner food waste, I would imagine), which is mostly water to begin with.
Is it realistic to think you will see similar abilities with your worms – not likely! My point is simply that the processing ability of worms can vary WIDELY, depending on how you maintain your particular system.
Some suggest that a good guideline is 1/2 worm weight per day. In your case, since 1000 worms on average weigh somewhere around 1 lb, an estimate of 1/2 lb of waste per day – or 3.5 lb of waste per week might not be a bad guess. I’m a little hesitant to even mention that, but hopefully you will take that recommendation with a grain of salt, based on what I’ve said above.
So what exactly DO I recommend?
Let the worms be your guide! Do everything you can to optimize the process, and carefully monitor your worms’ progress – especially early on. Start with very small amounts of waste (especially if you have set up your bin ahead of time with food), and go from there based on your worms’ ability to consume the materials. Obviously you don’t need to wait until every last morsel is gone from the bin. I would suggest creating several small food pockets (staggering the creation of these over the course of a given week should be helpful as well) and simply watching how quickly these pockets of food are consumed. Once the first pocket is basically processed, you can probably set up a new one (you would have a couple others on the go already), and so on.
Moving on to reproduction…
It is very common for worms to start reproducing VERY soon after being added to a worm bin – especially if conditions are to their liking. In fact, worms don’t even really need to reproduce in order to start depositing cocoons into the bin. Reproduction is basically a means of replenishing the sperm storage organ. Once the worms have sperm they can simply keep producing cocoons (using their own eggs) until it runs out.
Given the fact that you’ve had your bin for a month, I would think that there would be plenty of reproduction and cocoon laying in your bin by now. It might not be all that obvious – but rest assured, if the worms are healthy and vigorous you will almost certainly have cocoons and young worms in your bin.
Anyway – hope this helps, Leslie!
Thanks again for the great questions
Written by Bentley on February 27th, 2009 with 4 comments.
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Here is a rather lengthy email from Cher. She has some good questions, so I thought it would be helpful to post it (and respond to it) here:
Hi Bentley, I am very very new to this. Matter of fact just days. I live in AZ and The property we have is small and lots of rocks. Not good to have a garden when you have no soil ha!
Anyway I thought about raising some worms to sell as bait and if that didn’t go over very well I was still covered because I could use the compost /dirt. I have plans on hopefully growing some garden plants in tubs/buckets. So either way I felt like I couldn’t lose. By the way I have horses and I was reading on line that some grow their worms in horse manure. I do realize horse manure creates heat. And the worms do not like it too hot. So I was wondering what your thoughts were on that as far as using old manure etc or if you advise that at all since one place i read that the de worming medicine that you have used for your horse will come thru the manure and kill the worms. Even if it has been months since they have been de wormed?
I watched your simple but effective video of using two tubs for making a worm bin. Which by the way I did last night. I just don’t have the worms yet. You had advised to let set for 1-2 weeks. So another question here: if I go digging in the horse manure and I find worms can I use those? Or do you think it best to order right off some? Obviously i am trying to keep costs way down.
Oh another question ..sorry.. Can you freeze your scraps and then use them for food? Like right now I have my left over broccoli, coffee grounds and Cucumber peelings etc frozen in freezer…good idea or bad?
We have some pallets that My husband said he would help me make some ‘farms’ out of. But they are for outside. I have your tub bin worm farm in my kitchen right now. Oh I appreciate your sense of humor too. Anyway if you have time and want to answer my questions that would be great. Need all the help I can get.
Thanks Cher
Hi Cher,
I really like your approach/philosophy re: the start up of a potential worm business – it’s always a great idea to cover the bases and not put too much on the line before you’ve tested the waters. With that sort of attitude, and your current situation (owning horses etc), I think your chances of finding success are quite good!
Moving on to your questions…
Aged manure is pretty well the ‘ultimate’ worm food, so I definitely recommend using it – at least as far as large-scale, preferably open (no lid) systems go. i.e. I would definitely use caution when it comes to adding manure to small indoor worm bins – very important to make sure the material is really well-aged, since harmful gases (namely, ammonia) can be released during the decomposition of this material.
If I had horses (I WISH!), I would probably make a big outdoor pile of manure and bedding (straw etc) and just let it sit for awhile. I would continue to add new material, but likely only on one side. Eventually (maybe after a few weeks), I would add composting worms to the side with the oldest material.
Some of the craziest densities of composting worms I’ve ever seen have been in aged, outdoor manure heaps. As for the de-worming medication, it should get broken down as the manure composts/ages, so generally this shouldn’t be an issue by the time you add the worms. You can always test thing out on a small scale ahead of time just to be safe.
As for using worms already in your heaps – I’d only recommend relying on these IF you know for sure they are composting worms (eg Eisenia fetida). I’ve seen plenty of regular soil worms in old manure, so there is no guarantee that worms you find in your heaps are the right ones. If you DO see high densities of smallish, reddish worms, you are likely in luck!
Freezing food wastes is actually one of the best approaches to take – it greatly speeds up the decomposition process since it breaks down the structural integrity of tough plant (and other) materials, thus making the wastes far more accessible to microbes. Chuck these frozen wastes into your aged manure heap (once worms are established) in the middle of the summer and see what happens!
FEEDING FRENZY! (once they’ve thawed out, of course)
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on February 26th, 2009 with 13 comments.
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Here is a question from Debra:
Good AFternoon,
I am relatively new to the vericomposting craft. I just love the
ideal of making use of all that we are blessed with. My Grandmother
used to tell me “waste not…want not”.
Anyway, I have a vericompost bin set up (approximately 5 months now).
I have been harvesting the liquid; keeping it in gallon jugs until
Spring. I live in the Pacific Northwest and we have some pretty
extreme temps during the winter. I’ve noticed a very strong smell
from the liquid with a thin film on top. I am assuming that this
indicates anarobic (the bad bacteria) growth. Can I use this liquid
with the bad smell; should I try to airate it with air stones before
use? I don’t want to harm any of my precious plants come spring time.
But I also do not want to discard something that I could make usable.
Thank you for your website and your words of wisdom. We, in the
field, appreciate all you do!
Hi Debra,
Interesting question. In all honesty, I definitely wouldn’t put worm bin leachate in bottles and just let it sit for months – the potential for it becoming a putrid mess is pretty high!
I hate to recommend getting rid of ANY potentially useful resource though (remember – even ‘wastes’ are just misplaced resources), so I certainly wouldn’t tell you to just chuck it.
Bare minimum, you really should dilute it and start aerating it well before trying to use it. Use your nose as a quality tester – as long as it has any bad odor you definitely don’t want to use it. Even once it is fairly odorless, I’d still recommend using it with caution – maybe pour some in an area of your garden you aren’t all that concerned about. Or simply pour it on some weeds – who knows, maybe you’ve invented the ultimate weed killer and don’t even know it! (just for fun, maybe you could try out the pure, unaerated stuff and see what happens)
Once it looks as though it’s not going to harm your plants, you can probably get a little more bold with your use of it.
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on February 25th, 2009 with 2 comments.
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Here is an interesting email from Crissy:
Quick question about the use of vermicompost – does it go
bad, and if so, how do I know not to use it?
I harvested my worm bin for the first time back in October, which was
just before the rain started here. The compost was pretty wet, but
for the most part smelled like rich soil. I’d planned to let it dry
outside a bit, then store it in bags or jars and give it to my
gardening friends, but I misjudged the weather. It’s been sitting
outside in a big, fairly shallow plastic flower pot, loosely covered
with a tarp ever since.
I’ve decided that I want to give container gardening a shot this
year, and want to amend some old potting soil with the vermicompost.
I just want to make sure that it’s still okay to use before I get
everything planted.
Hi Crissy – that’s actually a great question!
I’ll start by saying “it depends”. What it depends on is how stabilized your vermicompost is. By definition, vermicompost is a ‘humus-like’ end product that results from the stabilization of organic wastes (thanks to the joint effort of worms and microbes). Humus is a highly stable material – very resistant to further breakdown. As an analogy, consider peat moss – or potting soil (which usually contains a lot of peat moss). If you soak brand new peat moss and let it sit indefinitely, it will never go ‘bad’ or decompose much further than it already has. This is the same idea with really good quality composts.
If there is still a fair amount of partially decomposed waste materials left in your vermicompost, there is a decent chance that these could rot further – and if this occurs under anaerobic conditions, you could end up with a material that is considered ‘bad’. In other words, it is basically the anaerobic breakdown of unstabilized organic wastes that results in nasty smells and the foul nature of ‘rotten’ materials. Believe it or not, if you ground up fresh chicken meat (an example of a material that would be really nasty if rotten) and mixed it with a LOT of peat moss or some other bedding material (along with some mature compost for good measure) and provided the mixture with a LOT of oxygen, it would compost just like anything else.
Farm animal mortality composting is actually quite common. It is next to impossible to eliminate ALL anaerobic microsites in a mixture, so there could still be some odors – but its amazing what you can do when you add enough bedding and provide enough oxygen.
Anyway – I’m getting sidetracked here.
Good vermicompost should keep for quite some time (sometimes years) – and it really only loses its potency, rather than going ‘bad’. If it is sitting outside, exposed to the elements, the quality can degrade quite quickly – but if covered up, it should be totally fine for at least multiple months.
It certainly won’t hurt to use it, either way (again assuming it is good quality stuff to begin with). Just mix it up and take a whiff. If it smells rotten, mix it some more then put it somewhere dry to sit (on top of multiple layers of corrugated cardboard might help to draw out excess moisture). It should eventually become aerobic (with the rich, earthy smell of good humus), and useful as a soil amendment.
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on February 25th, 2009 with no comments.
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Here is an interesting question from Ruthie:
my husband and i are new to worm farming and have read just
about everything i can find regarding food for the worms; we have a
“cultured” nightcrawler which we are going to use for castings and
fish bait; i have seen the mention of grain feeding and would like to
know which grains would be best? what ratios to use etc. there has
been a mention of rye & barley?
would appreciate any information you can supply me with.
Hi Ruthie,
I’m not really an expert on this topic, but my hope is that by posting this on the blog we’ll get some comments from readers who do use a lot of grain foods for their worms.
I honestly think a lot of grain products would work well. I’ve heard that a lot of people use chicken ‘laying mash’ as a worm fattener, but have not tried this myself. I’ve used wheat bran mixed with food waste slurry (my homemade manure), but it’s hard to say how effective it was given the fact that it was mixed with a lot of other materials.
I’ve also used brewery wastes (which, according to some experts is an excellent material for worms) but actually found them very difficult to work with – they went anaerobic (and nasty) very easily and the worms didn’t seem to care for them at all.
You mentioned culturing ‘nightcrawlers’ successfully – I would be interested to learn what type of nightcrawlers you are referring to. I have yet to come across someone who has had a lot of success with soil nightcrawlers (such as the Canadian Nightcrawler – Lumbricus terrestris), given their requirements.
Thanks
Written by Bentley on February 24th, 2009 with 8 comments.
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I received a cool email from RWC reader, Christy – who wanted to share with me her winter worm bin set-up (after she saw the recent post about building a small winter bin). I asked Christy if I could share her info/photos and she was more than happy to oblige.
Here is what she wrote:
I saw your latest post about a worm heater and I thought I would give you pictures of the heater I set up in my parents worm bin. Their bin is sitting in their unheated Rabbit Barn. The barn has dropped below freezing several times (once for almost a week) but the bin has stayed above 65 degrees on the heated end.
The Heater is really simple to set up. I used a one gallon glass jar and a 2 – 5 gallon aquirium heater. The total cost is less than $10.00. I filled the jar with water and cut a hole in the lid for the cord. I place the heater in the jar according to the directions. I use an aquirium thermometer to check the temp. of the jar. It stays between 72 – 76 degrees. The jar is barried directly in the bin and placed close to one end to allow the worms a place to go if the heater gets too warm. The worms have stayed very active all winter even during very cold spells. The bin does dry out a little around the heater but it is easy to mist the area every few days.
Thanks again, Christy – this sounds like a nifty system!
Written by Bentley on February 24th, 2009 with 4 comments.
Read more articles on The Share Board and Winter Composting.
Nice and toasty warm in parts of the winter worms bed
Just a quick update on the winter worm composting front. I popped by my dad’s place on Friday to see how things were doing in the outdoor bed. He had been providing me with encouraging temperature updates (you may recall that we buried the sensor for the remote weather station in the bed last time), but I wanted to check temperatures throughout the bed.
I also wanted to add a considerable amount of food waste that had been piling up at home. I originally started stockpiling it so that I could make some ‘homemade manure‘, but the time involved (and the fact that my blender seems to have gone missing – I suspect foul play! haha) made me decide to simply take it over to my dad’s. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to add it to the pile on the day I took it over, so it was frozen when we added it on Friday.
Lots of frozen food waste added to the top of the heap before being covered in straw
This actually makes things a little more interesting, since I’ll be really interested to see how/if it affects the overall bed temps, and how quickly it becomes worm food. One thing to point out – if you are wondering why there are plastic bags mixed in with the food waste, it is because these are made with biodegradable plastic.
Temperatures in the worm bed seem to be even higher than when I last checked, but certainly aren’t off the charts (always a good thing). The lowest temperatures I found were in the 10 C (50 F) range, while the highest was about 30 C (86 F).
Lots of worms seem to be really active up near the surface – I actually ended up feeling badly about the fact that I was digging around at all (to look for worms, and to create a bit of a depression for the food waste), since it was brutally cold outside at the time. My dad and I were more than happy to quickly pack it in and head inside after the food waste was added!
I will more than likely head over this Friday to see how things are looking.
Stay tuned!
Previous Winter Worm Composting Posts
Winter Composting Extravaganza 2.0
Winter Worm Composting – 12-08-08
Winter Worm Composting – 12-15-08
Winter Worm Composting – 12-30-08
Winter Worm Composting – 01-23-09
Winter Worm Composting – 02-09-09
Written by Bentley on February 23rd, 2009 with 5 comments.
Read more articles on Large-Scale Vermicomposting and Winter Composting.
Hi everyone. It’s been awhile since I added anything to the “Share Board”. Remember – if there is anything you’d like to share with the rest of our readers (information, requests, opportunities etc) that relates to vermicomposting, and is non-commercial (feel free to submit these too and I’ll let you know if they are appropriate), I will be happy to add them.
A little while ago I wrote a response to a couple of people wondering what to do with all their extra worms (a hypothetical situation, should their worm bins end up doing really well).
I recently received an email from Kristine P., letting me know that she would be more than happy to take extra worms off anyone’s hands. Here is what she wrote:
I work for a non profit organization that could GREATLY benefit from
donated worms! Could you please contact me for more info? Or send my
contact info to someone who might help?
Thanks so much!
I asked Kristine if it was ok to post this on the Share Board and she encouraged me to do so, mentioning that if anyone DOES have worms they can donate, they should contact:
Monica Jeske
Education Manager
Friends of Boerner Botanical Gardens
(414)525-5659
Written by Bentley on February 23rd, 2009 with no comments.
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I recently received some questions related to keeping Red Worms outdoors
The first one comes from April:
Can the red composting worms live outside? What are the
temperature ranges that they can tolerate?
Thank you.
Hi April,
The short answer is YES, absolutely. Be sure to check out my winter worm composting series to learn more about my outdoor (cold weather) system. Red Worms (Eisenia fetida) are a very cold-hardy worm. When I was transferring material (and worms) from my previous winter composting bin to the new one this year, I literally found worms encased in frozen compost – still wiggling away (a little more slowly, mind you).
Basically you are probably ok with temperatures between 0 and 35 C (32-95 F), and maybe even warmer depending on the situation (I have a friend who has kept them alive at temps of 100 F). Remember, we are talking about temperatures in the worm’s habitat – NOT necessarily ambient temps. Even it’s 100 F outside, you should be able to keep the inside of a vermicomposting system a fair bit cooler using various strategies.
Next, we have a question from Gayle:
I have worms in an inside bin. i seem to have way more
waste than my 1 # of worms can handle. I want to convert my inside
worms to outside, and make an outside compost. i had hesitated to do
this originally, because I didn’t have much garden waste except
deadheaded flowers etc. I now have winter garden leaves etc to make
compost. so, bottom line, if I put my worms outside will i kill them?
the spot I am considering to start is an old unused sand box that has
a layer of garden dirt. i live in Texas. we are for the most part
done w/ winter. lows maybe rarely in the 30’s. thanks
Hi Gayle,
You can indeed move composting worms outdoors – especially given your climate (ie no extra protection will be needed – assuming we are talking about Red Worms here). Garden waste actually isn’t the best worm food for the most part, so don’t worry about not having too much of that. Fall leaves are great though – they fall (no pun intended) somewhere between food and ‘bedding’, and the worms love them. I’d recommend adding ALL your fruit/veg food waste as well (you mentioned producing way more than the worms could eat inside).
Regarding the type of system to set up – there are lots of options. Your sandbox idea is a really good one – I’m a little biased though, since I did the exact same thing last summer. haha
I actually created a ‘vermicomposting trench’ – something I would highly recommend in your case since it’s going to get REALLY hot there in the summer. This will help the worms to stay cool. I’d recommend you check out my ‘Vermicomposting Trench Wrap-Up‘ post – you’ll find links to all my related articles about this topic there.
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on February 20th, 2009 with 2 comments.
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Some good questions from Mike:
Hi Bentley, I have a couple of questions for you.
1. When do I know its time to add food scraps to the bin?
2. Should I let the scraps sit for a week or so before I do add them
to the bin?
3. I plan on being out of town for 3 weeks and will not have any way
of feeding the worms, any suggestions on what I can do?
Thank You
Mike
Hi Mike,
1) I always recommend “letting the worms be your guide” when it comes to feeding. You definitely don’t need to wait until all the food is gone (better if you DON’T do this in fact), but you also don’t want it to start piling up. If the worms seem to be actively feeding on your food pockets (where you bury food scraps) and you have some more room to add more, it shouldn’t hurt to add some more food. One thing to keep in mind here though – it is next to IMPOSSIBLE to starve your worms. They will start processing the bedding materials more quickly if there is absolutely no quality food (such as rotting food waste) in the bin.
2) I like letting scraps sit before adding them, but it’s up to you. If they already have some food in there it’s not that big a deal to add fresh stuff, assuming you aren’t in a rush to get your scraps processed. In fact, adding fresh material can be a nice way to add ’slow-release’ food to your system, which brings us to #3…
3) Don’t sweat it – your worms will be totally fine! I’d recommend adding more bedding and more food (without overdoing it), including some fairly fresh stuff as mentioned in the previous response. I should however mention that worm densities can be a factor here. Generally, I am referring here to a typical home worm bin. If you have a LOT of hungry worms you may actually need to get someone to feed them while you are away.
This reminds me of a funny situation I found myself in last spring. I had to go away for several weeks and I received a 5 lb shipment of worms on the day I left!!! Luckily I had set up a fairly large system (using my usual methods, described in my videos) ahead of time, but still I was really worried since it was a lot more worms than I should have put in a bin of that size. I had visions of a mass exodus of worms from the bin while I was away, and me coming home to find them everywhere in the house!
As it turns out, when I returned, the volume of the material in the bin was greatly reduced, there was no recognizable ‘food’ left, and the worms seemed happy as can be. In fact it looked as though they had been reproducing like crazy while I was gone as well – the material in the bin was loaded with cocoons.
Anyway, bottom-line, don’t worry about it too much. Make sure you leave them with some food and bedding when you go way, but there’s no need to overdo it.
Hope this helps
Written by Bentley on February 19th, 2009 with 2 comments.
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Here’s a question from Kevin:
I received as a gift a 5- tray worm farm. i have 2 lbs of
worms. I filled the first tray with coir and potting soil. now i am
ready to start my second tray. what should i put as bedding. i don’t
want to buy potting soil every tray. please give me some advice.
thanks
Hi Kevin,
To be totally honest, I’m amazed you’ve been able to keep 2 lb of worms in a single tray with coir and potting soil. I’ll assume you have also been adding food scraps as well.
Potting soil generally isn’t a great material to add to a worm bin – although it is often a lot better than garden soil. This is because it typically consists of mostly peat moss (whereas garden soil has a lot more mineral particles and thus tends to be a lot heavier and more dense, thus impeding air flow in a worm bin).
One of the risks of using commercial potting soil, by the way, is that it can contain inorganic fertilizer salts which can harm or even kill your worms. If it is old stuff that’s been exposed to many waterings (without any fertilizer being added of course), then it should be ok.
Coir can be a decent worm bedding, but it can also be pretty expensive. Aside from that – in my experience, worms don’t exactly love it either. Your best bet with coir is to moisten it well and mix it with food waste (partially decomposed preferably) and let it sit for a bit before introducing the worms.
Ok – now assuming your first tray has gradually filled up over time and it is time to move up to the next tray, the good news is that you definitely do NOT need to use either of the bedding materials you’ve been using. There are even better (free) options in my humble opinion. Shredded newsprint or shredded cardboard (corrugated and/or egg carton cardboard work best) are great choices.
What you will want to do is moisten the new bedding, then mix it with a fair amount of food waste (again, partially-decomposed stuff works best) – perhaps a ratio of 2:1, bedding:food volume. Simply add this material to the new tray then wait. As it decomposes further, the worms should start to move up into that tray – especially if the first tray has little in the way of good food for the worms by that time.
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on February 19th, 2009 with 1 comment.
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As all my loyal readers will know, I’m very interested in the topic of winter vermicomposting (and winter composting in general) – and it’s something I’ve been doing myself for the last few years. That being said, I’ve always advocated the use of large-scale systems during the winter, since they will generate and hold warmth a LOT more easily than a typical worm bin ever could. Of course, I’ve always been thinking in terms of natural heating – the warmth generated via microbial (aerobic) respiration during the decomposition of organic wastes.
In all honesty, it would be next to impossible to keep a normal-sized worm bin active (or the worms alive, for that matter) if kept outside in temperatures that are consistently below the freezing mark – when relying on natural heating that is!
But who says you have to heat the system naturally??!
Not Mark Glatting – someone who has recently jumped into the wonderful world of vermicomposting. You see, Mark likes to think outside the box – or the bin, I should say!
He’s come up with a really nifty way to keep his worm bin cozy during the long winter months. Mark decided he was going to keep his new worm bin out in his garage this winter – where temperatures have regularly dropped below the freezing mark – and decided to create a simple system to ensure that his bin stayed relatively warm.
MacGyver would have been proud!
Bin warmth is maintained thanks to the circulation of warm water through the system. All that’s needed is a bucket full of water, an aquarium heater, a fountain pump, a thermometer, and some tubing.
Here is Mark’s brief summary of his concept:
My goal here was maintain a sustainable habitat under the harshest conditions that I could not control…the weather. I felt that if I could do that I would be a success. The purpose of this experiment was to see if I could keep the bin from freezing. The bin is in my unheated garage. My materials consisted of a five gallon bucket,an aquarium heater, a fountain pump, 13 feet of 3/8 tubing (not PVC) and a thermometer. The tubing I coiled around the inside of the bin so the cool water would always circulate back into the bucket. I also put a brick in the bucket to displace some of the water so I do not have to cycle 5 gallons of water but four. It is easier to heat 4 gallons than 5. My project worked! The bin did not freeze nor sour after 3 weeks.
…and some additional information:
The heating system itself is very simple. As you said some insulation would help a great deal. I did not take temperature readings inside the bin. I was looking for frost and to see if it would turn sour. The aquarium heater came from Wal-Mart, it is rated at 200 watts and has a thermostat.The fountain pump came from Wal-Mart as well, but I don’t know how many watts it is. One thing I considered was to have the bucket higher than the bin using gravity as a tool to make the pump not work so hard (water flows down hill).
I have a two car garage that has no insulation at all, is not heated and it did get below freezing in the garage a number of times.I probably spent $50.00 US for the whole thing. I am not sure how much electric I used, the system itself can be used in case of an emergency. If we were expecting bitter cold I would fire it up.Remember the heater has a thermostat
I think Mark’s idea is fantastic, and I was really pleased when he enthusiastically granted me permission to share it with everyone here. A lot of people have asked me whether or not it was possible to keep a small bin active during cold weather, and up until now I’ve just assumed it would be more trouble than it’s worth.
In my mind, Mark’s system changes that. This is something that would be very inexpensive to set up, and – given the low wattage of the heater – almost certainly pretty cheap to maintain. I suggested that one could increase the effectiveness of the system even more if the worm bin sat in a larger box filled with straw, or some other type of insulation material (even scrunched newpaper would probably work well).
Did I mention that Mark is planning to come up with a system to keep his system cool in the summer?
Stay tuned!
[UPDATE]: I received an email from Mark, letting me know that credit for the worm bin warming system should actually go to his wife Letty. My apologies, Letty!
Written by Bentley on February 13th, 2009 with 14 comments.
Read more articles on Home Vermicomposting.
Here is a question from Denise:
I watched you video on how to make a bin and I am excited to try this
new way of composting our kitchen leftovers. We easily have 1+ pounds
of scraps a day……what size rubbermaid bins would be good to start
with and how many pounds of worms……will the colony of worms grow
fast….and need to be moved to another bin? What is fast? months or
years?
Thanks
Denise
Hi Denise,
Those are good questions. I would say that with that amount of waste, you should probably start with at least two pounds of worms, assuming you want to deal with all that waste from the start (more on that in a minute). That being said, I should mention that this is in no way set-in-stone advice. Every worm bin is different, and there are a LOT of different variables at work here. Just for example – let’s say that you keep your bin in your garage where temperatures are quite cool (eg 50-60F). The processing speed of the system at these temperatures will definitely be much slower than they would be if the temperature was 75 F.
How you handle the waste is another important consideration. If you just throw it in fresh, with little or no chopping etc, having 5 lbs of worms in the system probably wouldn’t even help. Helping the worms/microbes along as much as possible is one of the keys of effective vermicomposting. Freezing/cooking/chopping/blending/aging etc are great ways to get things moving more quickly.
Another important consideration is the fact that worms will rarely be processing at their maximum efficiency right off the bat – generally, they’ll need some time to get used to their new system and settle in. As such, it is really important to be very conservative with your feeding early on, at least until it is clear they are consuming the food materials quickly. Basically it just comes down to letting the worms be your guides (rather than simply relying on guidelines provided by people like me – haha)
As for the size of bin you should use, let me share with you my personal favorite. I think the best all-around Rubbermaid bin is the ~ 12.5 Gal (24″ long x 16″ wide x 8.75″ deep) Roughneck tote. It is large enough to easily house up to 3 or 4 lbs of worms, yet it’s not so huge as to take up a lot of space in your house. I love the relatively shallow 8.75″ depth – this helps to ensure that the lower reaches of the tub don’t end up sloppy and anaerobic. I generally use these tubs without a lid (further helping to ensure good air flow), but not everyone is going to want to do this obviously.
If you put 1-2 lb of worms in a bin like this they will grow fast to take advantage of available space/resources (assuming they are taken care of), but the population growth will slow down once conditions become crowded for them. At this point, you can start up a new system, and simply move half of the contents over to this new bin -OR start up an outdoor system (eg. vermi-trench), give them away etc. Check out this post for ideas – What Do I Do With All My Extra Worms??.
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on February 11th, 2009 with no comments.
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I am long overdue for a Worm Inn update!
I guess there really hasn’t been all that much in the way of exciting news to share with you. I still haven’t started harvesting vermicompost from my first system, and will likely wait for at least a little while longer before doing so. That being said, there are a couple things worth mentioning.
I’ve noticed something unusual in my Euro Inn – the worms have disappeared!
Believe it nor not, this is actually quite interesting – and may be an indication that Euros aren’t the ideal worm species for a system like this. Of course, they haven’t really “disappeared” – they are simply hanging out lower in the system than the Reds in my other Inn.
ENCs tend to like going down deep where there is more moisture. The problem is that it will likely be more difficult to harvest castings from the bottom (without getting a bunch of worms) because of this. I’m certainly not ready to throw in the towel just yet, however. I’ll give the system a few more months before I draw any official conclusions.
Thanks to a tip from Worm Inn creator, Robyn Crispe, I am testing out a new (for me) way to deal with a minor fungus gnat invasion in my Red Worm Inn – coffee grounds!
What’s interesting is that one of my readers suggested this a long time ago (I even wrote about it in this fungus gnat post), but I totally forgot to try it out.
For the past week or so I have been adding all our coffee grounds to this system, rather than adding them to my food scrap hold as I would normally do. Luckily we brew up a pot each morning so it won’t take long to get a decent accumulation of the grounds in the Inn. It is hard to say for sure if the approach has been effective or not – there definitely seems to be few adults flying out now, but I’ll have to give it a bit more time. The worms seem to be loving it anyway! There are lots of them up in the zone where the grounds have been added.
If anyone else has fungus gnats, and also happens to be a coffee drinker, please give this a shot. I’d love to hear how this works out for you.
One important thing to mention though – MAKE SURE YOU HAVE FUNGUS GNATS, NOT FRUIT FLIES!
In my experience, fruit flies actually thrive in bins with a lot of coffee grounds, so you’ll want to be careful with this if you aren’t 100% sure of the difference between these two pests.
Fruit flies (FFs) and fungus gnats (FGs) are about the same size, but fruit flies have a thicker (chubbier? haha) look about them. FFs also tend to be lighter in colour (more of a brownish, rather than black), with larger coloured eyes – essentially looking like a mini house fly. FGs look more like mini mosquitos.
Anyway – I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the coffee grounds technique (and of course any other Worm Inn developments worthy of mention).
Technorati Tags: fruit flies, fungus gnats, worm inn, worm bin, vermicomposting, worm composting, coffee grounds
Written by Bentley on February 10th, 2009 with 4 comments.
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My dad surveys temperatures in the winter worm bed
Good news on the winter worm composting front!
I was able to get over to my dad’s place on Friday afternoon to see how things were coming along. It was my first visit since adding a large amount of manure (and more straw) to the system, and I was very eager to see if the bed had warmed up at all. As you may recall, the bed wasn’t doing too badly by the time I got around to adding the manure – temperatures in the middle of the pile were in the 15 C (59 F) range.
Temperatures have certainly climbed since then! I am very happy to report that throughout much of the bed temperatures are 20 C (68 F) or higher (see picture to right).
What impressed me even more than the maximum temperatures, was the fact that the warmth was so widespread. On one side, just in from the wall, there still seems to be a really cold zone (just over the freezing mark), but the rest of the bed is averaging 15 C (59 F) or higher. Surprisingly, I found some really warm zones only a couple inches in from the back wall!
Given the optimal vermicomposting temps in much of the bed, I was naturally curious to see what the worms were up to down below. I was pleasantly surprised to find lots of them up in the manure layer, just under the straw.
Healthy looking Red Worm (Eisenia fetida) from the winter worm bed
There seems to be a lot of young/small worms in the upper zone, but I did find some spots with a fair number of decent sized worms as well. This small worm dominance didn’t surprise me too much – in my experience, the larger worms often tend to concentrate themselves further down in a worm bed.
In other (good) news…
It looks like we (or more accurately, my technically-gifted brother) managed to get the weather station system – mentioned in my second winter worm compost post – working as a remote temperature probe!
Remote Weather Station Sensor Gets Buried in the Pile
We buried the receiver in a zone that should provide us with a rough estimate of the average bed temp – that is to say, it’s not quite in the middle of the heap, and it isn’t buried very deep either. It started in the 14-15 C (57-59 F) range just after being buried, and according to my dad’s latest report it is now up in the 20 C (68 F) range.
We’ve clearly reached an interesting stage in our winter worm bed experiment. Believe it or not, the challenge will now involve trying to maintain ideal temps throughout much of the bed, without having any zones overheating too seriously. What’s really nice about this particular system, as compared to my previous (much smaller) winter composting bin, is that the worms should be able to move away from overheating zones quite easily.
Weather will likely play an important role on both sides of the coin (cooling/heating) from here on out. It was mild on the weekend, and this week we’re are supposed to have a couple days WELL above freezing – but I have little doubt that we still have plenty of winter weather ahead of us. It will definitely be interesting to see how significantly the temperature in the system changes over the next few weeks.
As it stands, I’d say this project has been a resounding success! Previously, this would have been right around the time that I was forced to give up on my winter worm bins, since temps were continuing to drop.
In this case, we really got off to a slow start (which in hindsight might have actually helped us), but things have been improving ever since. As it stands, it looks like there’s a very good chance I’ll be able to start harvesting worms from this bed before the end of the month!
I’ll certainly keep you posted!
Previous Winter Worm Composting Posts
Winter Composting Extravaganza 2.0
Winter Worm Composting – 12-08-08
Winter Worm Composting – 12-15-08
Winter Worm Composting – 12-30-08
Winter Worm Composting – 01-23-09
Written by Bentley on February 9th, 2009 with 6 comments.
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983 lb of Food Waste, and Counting!