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.
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That’s some good looking stuff! Looks like it has that ashy look i like to see.(My camera has bad color taking abilities)Them worms love their home.Wish i could try it.Too bad fire ants like making beds by hot stuff to survive.I’ll try and send you some photos of my raised beds.Need to experiment with molasses this year on them.Just harvested some finished vc made from leaves and coffee.Different looking than horse manure vc.
Larry, in what way did the composts look different?