February 2009
You are currently browsing the articles from Red Worm Composting written in the month of February 2009.
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.
Read more articles on The Share Board.
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.
Read more articles on Reader Questions.
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.
Read more articles on Reader Questions.
