February 2012
You are currently browsing the articles from Red Worm Composting written in the month of February 2012.
It’s been nearly a month since my last Winter Vermicomposting update (see “Winter Vermicomposting-1-30-12“), so I really wanted to get out this week and see how things have been coming along. While I had hoped to do some tinkering (as mentioned in my last post) to see if I could make the bed a bit more worm-friendly, that just didn’t end up happening, so I was a wee bit apprehensive when I pulled back the tarp yesterday.
It looks like I had nothing to worry about! As it turns out, my additions of snow, food waste and wet coffee grounds seem to have helped create lots of moist habitat for the worms. I’ve actually been diverting the coffee grounds into my wooden bin for at least the past couple of weeks (can’t remember exactly how long it’s been), so I’m wondering if this is helped to decrease the overheating and subsequent drying out of the grounds.
I was amazed to find Red Worms all over the place in the bed – up near the surface, down deep – even quite close to zones that appeared to be quite warm/dry (yep, I forgot to take my thermometer out with me again – LOL). Although the picture below doesn’t do justice to some of the observed worm densities, you can at least see how nice and moist a lot of the grounds are now. Pretty cool!
I DID end up adding more coffee grounds yesterday – one of the batches actually had a LOT of banana peels in it for some reason, so that might make things a little more interesting! I also added a bunch more snow to help keep things moist and (hopefully) a bit cooler.
Will keep everyone posted.
Written by Bentley on February 28th, 2012 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Winter Composting.
Time flies when you’re having fun! Here we are at Day 17 in our Waste Optimization Challenge.
Although most of the results were fairly predictable, it’s still been really interesting to see how things have progressed over the last couple of weeks. All the once-frozen carrots have now disappeared, and it doesn’t look like the last group (added fresh) is going to last much longer.
Day 0
Day 6
Day 12
Day 15
Day 17
A lot of people tend to be concerned about having lots of springtails in their vermicomposting systems – assuming they are negatively affecting the worms’ ability to process the wastes (or harming the worms in some way). I’ve always been pretty mellow about them since I know they play essentially the same role as the worms. After watching them closely during this experiment, however, I’m actually starting to think that they can be quite helpful (not just “harmless”)!
One thing I’ve noticed is that, unlike the worms, they will start colonizing the wastes materials pretty much right away. I suspect that his can help with the spread of microbial decomposers. As the wastes soften and become loaded with microbes, the worms can then get in there are really start fragmenting and mixing everything (and of course, digesting a fair amount as well).
Perhaps my next experiment should involve vermicomposting systems with and without springtails to see how much of a difference (if any) they make. Looks like I’ll be wrapping this one up fairly soon, so that might be a good follow-up!
Stay tuned!
Written by Bentley on February 27th, 2012 with 6 comments.
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Question from Christine:
I have been composting with worms for quite sometime now, and I have a
question that no one seems to have the answer to. I want to know why
they say to use red worms as opposed to earth worms for composting? I
have so many earthworms and would like to use them, so why do you
recommend red worms instead? Please let me know, thank you, chris
Hi Christine,
In a typical backyard composter (or composting heap etc) that’s in direct contact with the soil, regular soil worms will certainly come up into the lower reaches of the system and process the wastes – but it’s very important to realize that soil worms are NOT well-suited for composting at all, in comparison to varieties such as Red Worms.
Red Worms are among those earthworms known as “epigeic” worms – that is to say that their natural habitat tends to be near or even above the soil surface. They are specialized for life in rapidly changing environments – specifically, rich organic matter deposits such as manure heaps and compost piles. They can tolerate warmer conditions and much higher worm densities. They can also breed and consume wastes much faster than typical soil worms (which are classified as either “endogeic” or “anecic”).
In indoor systems, it’s actually next to impossible to keep and breed most soil worm species – at least when using your typical indoor worm composting bins/beds – so Red Worms (or other composting varieties) are always going to be your best choice when you are specifically wanting to process wastes materials quickly and effectively.
Hope this helps!
P.S. You may also want to check out this post to learn more about the different worm groups: Attracting Compost Worms in Your Backyard
P.S.S. The term “earthworm” refers to all three groups (mentioned above), including all composting species (even though they usually don’t live in a purely soil environment).
Written by Bentley on February 24th, 2012 with 3 comments.
Read more articles on Reader Questions.
Yesterday, I realized with dismay that I had completely forgotten to take pictures of my optimization bin over the (long) weekend. Ugggh!
I immediately went down and had a look (and snapped some Day 11 pics). I was amazed by what I saw! Today’s (Day 12) image below should give you a pretty good idea. The carrot disks that had been frozen then thawed were completely gone (needless to say, there wasn’t even a trace of the peelings), and even the whole carrot (also frozen then thawed) had almost disappeared.
Day 0
Day 6
Day 12
There’s no doubt now that the once-fresh carrot disks will win the title of “last food standing”, but as you can see, they are well on their way to being decomposed as well.
Will be interesting to see how long it takes for them to disappear completely!
Written by Bentley on February 22nd, 2012 with 4 comments.
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Very quick update…
I checked on my two bins today to see how things were coming along. I didn’t want to dig around TOO much, but did want to see if there were any new cocoons yet.
There is definitely at least one in the Euro bin, and at least two in the Red Worm bin (first image below is a Euro cocoon, second is a Red Worm cocoon).
Looks as though the Reds may already be starting to pull ahead of the Euros – but we shall see. Again, I didn’t want to completely excavate the bins (would be pretty stressful for the worms if I was doing that every time I checked on the systems) – so I may have missed some cocoons.
It appeared that the worms had consumed most of the carrot waste previously added to the bins (more so in the Euro bin), so I decided to add a bit more to each bin, along with some water since the habitat seemed a little on the dry side.
I will likely do a more thorough cocoon (and juvenile) count next time around so we know for sure where we are at!
Previous Posts in Series
Euros vs Reds-2-09-12
Euros Vs Reds – Take Two…and…ACTION!
The Euros vs Reds Head to Head Challenge
Written by Bentley on February 21st, 2012 with 1 comment.
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