Comments on: Winter Worm Composting – 12-08-08

By: satya

satya — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:01:00 +0000

hi bentley,thanks for responding. My worm bin bedding is made of coir. They are fed raw vegetarian food scraps which I usually put into a blender which I was told would be easier to digest. A few months ago the bedding seemed very dry so I had put in a little water-maybe that’s the problem. Thanks!satya.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:29:13 +0000

Hi Anders,
There are two critical factors when it comes to keeping a worm bin (or anything for that matter) warm in the winter – 1) Heat and 2) Insulation.
The large volume of my system helps to generate (thanks to microbial activity) and hold heat, while the straw bales and snow helps to hold in that heat.

Small systems can be kept warm artificially. I will actually be writing a post about that very soon.

By: anders

anders — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:55:53 +0000

I am doing pretty well with my wormbin, or should I say the redworms do a good job. but every winter here in Seattle, the workings of the redworms get slower almost to a stop. I have a bin outside the house, for bedding I use wood shavings for food kitchen scraps, we are vegetarians. I sometimes water the wormbin.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:05:02 +0000

Hehe – I’ve never heard someone say that worms are “falling” out of their bin, Satya – but there’s a first time for everything, right?

Seriously though, obviously worms are supposed to stay inside your vermicomposting system. If they are trying to escape in large numbers then something is wrong inside. Unfortunately I need more info about your system in order to provide any sort of advice. What sort of food have you fed them? How did you set up the bin? What type of bin is it? Do you have bedding materials? What kind of worms and how many do you have?

Just a few questions that come to mind.

By: Satya

Satya — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:58:20 +0000

Hi!
I had ordered a vermicomposting bin a while ago and have started composting. I do it on my patio. I don’t know what to do, but I have been having numerous worms fall out of the bin for the last few weeks. Why could that be? How can i solve it?
Many thanks!
Satya.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:56:25 +0000

Hey Christine,
We sealed the temp gauge inside a plastic bag with dry shredded cardboard in it (to help keep it dry inside). I just get the impression that it’s not a very good system. Even out in the air it didn’t seem to work incredibly well.
Oh well – back to my trusty long-stemmed thermometer!

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:51:34 +0000

Bentley,

I assume you put the temp gage in a zip lock plastic bag before you burried in in the pile? Or maybe those things are totally weather proof and being burried in dirt and exposed to a lot of moisture doesn’t ruin them?

By: Bentley

Bentley — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:22:07 +0000

Hi Justin – my temps are actually very cool at the moment. I need to get my bed warmed up, and may in fact need to do so artificially to get things going.
Not sure I would want any zones at 160, but 50-120 would be great, and the worms could easily stay in zones that are to their liking (areas with temps in the range of 65-80 more than likely).
I suspect that even with your hot internal temps, if there is plenty of cooler real estate in the heap they would be fine.

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:39:14 +0000

What is the temp. on your compost pile? I have 2 large compost piles (about a 40′ circumference on each) and temp. ranges from 50’s up to 160 depending on where you measure in the pile. Would the worms survive in this during the winter? They could find a happy temperature I’m sure some where in the pile, but just not sure if they would make it in an active hot compost. I would love to start some vermiposting along with everything else I do.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:23:36 +0000

Patricia – yeah, our weather certainly makes things interesting! We are actually kinda spoiled in comparison to some parts of the country, believe it or not!

Dwayne – what’s funny is that this bed is only going to be about half (or less) the size of our originally planned system! As for the weather – yeah this year Old Man Winter came to stay quite early on (in recent years, the snow has come and gone a number of times before the end of December), so it will be good to get this system finished soon, before the REAL winter weather arrives!

Jerry – My dad is definitely one of a kind. He’s a 70 years young semi-retired university professor (should be totally retired, but loves teaching too much) who has become obsessed with helping me with the worm biz any way he can. He picks worms, hauls manure and straw in his station wagon, and comes over to help me look after my 1 yr old daughter when she is home with me!
Based on sweat equity ALONE, I consider him a full partner in the business (yet he refuses any and all monetary offers, and even feels like he’s imposing when I invited him over for dinner – lol).