Comments on: Winter Composting Extravaganza 2.0

By: Bentley

Bentley — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 12:37:33 +0000

Hi Erin,
The “big thing at [my] dad’s” is old news (lol). If you visit the “Winter Composting” category on the blog you will see that I’ve switched to a winter windrow in my own yard.
http://www.redwormcomposting.com/category/winter-composting/

Looks as though you are in a somewhat colder zone than I am (although I am surprised that 4b would have a 4 foot frost zone!). I still think you could keep them alive with a deep trench and a LOT of material heaped over top. These worms are pretty cold-hardy.

By: erin bailey

erin bailey — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 02:32:17 +0000

Hi Bentley,
I am wondering what you do with your outdoor worms if your were not building this big thing at your dad’s. Also, I live in zone 4b, It can get 30 below zero farenheit, and the frost goes 4 feet deep. If I had ourdoor worm trench in my garden, what would I do when winter comes?

By: Elsa

Elsa — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:06:08 +0000

Hi Bentley,

Our community garden has about 5000 to 10000 red wigglers to keep warm this winter and plan to use your “extravaganza” desing. We have straw bales, last years compost, the current worm bed medium and lost of horse manure and brew waste. My question is, when I dig the trench in our largely inorganic soil and pile pile up all the materials, wont the regular earthworms (night crawlers) get in there? and, is this a problem? The worms I have are a variety of red wigglers. Thanks,Elsa

By: Bentley

Bentley — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:56:39 +0000

Hi Jerry – you must be from California or something (wink, wink)!
😆
It get’s mighty cold up here during the winter, so the last thing I’ll be worried about is cooking the worms. Aside from that, this bed will actually encourage air flow. When we first set it up, we added a bunch of bulky brush on top of the soil. The main composting mass sits on top of this layer, so this should really help (air flow from below, plus a cooler zone that worms can move to if things go thermophilic above). Aside from that, while the bales of straw are certainly great insulators, there will definitely be some air spaces here and there.

Bob – yeah, it’s a challenge, but it’s a lot more interesting than calling it quits during the winter months (as most people do up here)! Should be fun.
😉

By: Bob Packard

Bob Packard — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:04:48 +0000

Hi Bentley,

You all work harder to keep your worms warm than we do to keep them cool in the summer. I think it’s pretty cold here today. 58F. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of that white stuff. Snow? But better you than me. Bob

By: Jerry Gach

Jerry Gach — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:37:54 +0000

Hi Bentley,

I’m really interested in seeing the results of this experiment. I’m wondering if the worms will cook under the thick tarp, due to a moist
environment with very little (If any) air flow.

Keep us posted.