When you mentioned you had to desist with your supplies of waste, it seemed to me that perhaps that was because of the slower activity in composting the food. Perhaps you could have used a faster and more effective method…the black soldier fly. I am sure it is in the USA as well. It also gets rid of meat, fats and produces larvae for chickens to eat and for fish. Much faster than a worm. But I use a combination of both….together, in what we call a COMPOT. Worms stay outside the dug-in COMPOT and come in to eat and go out to “sleep”. Improves soils around a metre around the pot.

I am from Australia and an therefore unaware of whether the fly would survive in your winter time. It won’t here in Canberra but it’s eating rate is considerably faster than the worm.

Very effective indeed

I use a heating element in the ground, just 150 watts and can maintain a temperature of 29 degrees celsius and that keeps things alive and growing for those 2-3 months that are impacted by frosts and temperatures of up to -7. Celsius again.

Just a thought.

After reading through the site, I thought you all would provide excellent insight to help me out. I have been vermicomposting in my basement over the last six months, and thought with the Spring and frost no longer being an issue, to move the worms outside. I realize in hindsight that the compost I already created outside in the fall may not have needed worms, but at the time, I added the worms because I was afraid they were dying in the indoor bin due to overcrowding.

I was hoping that you could give me some pointers as to what kind of ratio, moisture and environment I can create in the outdoor compost heap (measures 3X 4 and is 1.5 ft tall) It has wooden stakes for structural support around three sides. The temperature is 63 degrees Farenheit, also the worms are beneath the first 3 inches or so and have reduced in number. I would also like to know what I could add as well as kitchen scraps (vegan mostly), and how to properly aerate the compost so the worms are healthy.

Thank you for any advice or resources you would be willing to provide.

Thanks for your awesome! site:-)
It doesn´t sound like you have any problems with rats in your trench. Is that because rats aren´t attracted by the sort of waste you use, or is there another reason?
I really want to give this method a try come spring, but I am a little worried that it might attract unwanted attention from rats – we have quite a few of them around.

:-)Andreas

Hi Sandie,
What literature are you referring to? I’ve read that Red Worms can tolerate higher temps than 85 – more like 95. Not 104, I’ll admit – but then again, I don’t necessarily always trust the findings from the academic literature. Red Worms always manage to surprise me in terms of what they can tolerate. Assuming you are talking about a enclosed (bottom & top) plastic “bin”, I am definitely impressed that the worms were OK sitting out in 104 degree heat. If it’s the pit we’re talking about, or a bin with no bottom that wouldn’t surprise me nearly as much. As for “burrowing” – composting worms are not really great at digging into normal soil, but if it’s rich in organic matter they could certainly move down.

Very interesting article on how you got started with outdoor composting! A lot of work and great results! Your garden looks beautiful. My worms have been rocking and rolling downstairs and instead of one bin I now have 4. I got tired of taking care of all these bins so I have just made a small hole in the garden and dumped a lot of them in there. I covered it with horse manure and not finished compost. I hope it grows vegetables as beautiful as yours! I still have one bin in the house.

Before I dug the hole I put one bin outside to experiment. The literature says that worms don’t live over around 85 degrees. I put my bin in a spot that was in the shade all day long. Two days were 104 degrees. We had a heat spell. The worms did fine. So I am not sure how to understand that they don’t live beyond 85 degrees???? I mean they are manure worms from outside so I would think they can handle hot temperatures. I would think that they just burrow deeper. Can these worms actually burrow in soil?

Thanks for a great website!

Sandie Anne

I had a small backhoe dig up tree stumps on my new property and also had them dig a 30×30″ trench along the border (this was a fast way to get rid of tree roots in my future deer barrier hedge will be). It has been sitting empty while I have been working on other projects.

Now I am thinking that this will be a great way to try out your trench vermicomposting method. My soil is very poor, dry and compacted. I have a lot of weed material that I will chop with my mower and I plan to buy a lot of straw. Will this work?

My second question is should I try a mix of redworms and nightcrawlers in order to compost AND loosen the lower levels of my soil? I am not planning to separate worms later, just move them on to new trenches or windrows to prepare more soil for planting. I am not concerned about the level dropping in the original trench, I will just add more fill dirt and compost before planting.

My third question is how many worms would you advise for a 10 ft by 30″ trench?

Thanks, you provide quite a useful service & some humor to your readers!