In the Heat of the Summer

A new friend of mine on Facebook asked me this question...

I live in Mount Washington, and, unfortunately, have no shade for our house, or yard. I want to have worms to take care of our green waste, but I'm afraid, in the heat of summer, they will die. At its worst, our house averages 95 degrees, even in the kitchen. I'm worried it will kill any red worms I might cultivate. When the weather is favorable, what can I do?

Heather, Here's my advise. First, understand that even in 95 degree weather in the house the ambient temperature of the worm bin will be cooler, as long as you are careful with your bedding and food stock that you do not get any active composting going on.

I would start with a tower compost bin like the Can-O-Worms which you can find on my website. This tower, when all trays are active, will give you a great surface area to feed your worms without the mass of a larger bin that might heat up when food waste is added to the bedding. (Note: you still need to be careful, but with separate trays available for the worms to migrate into, there is less of a chance you will accidently fry your worms.)

Second suggestion, if you want to compost outside, I would first consider proximity to a water source, electricy and the need for you to keep a watchful eye in hot weather. Make sure your bin is out of any prevailing wind, erect an arbor to grow your own shade, set up a misting system to keep the surface of the bin moist without drowning the bin and a small fan to move air over the surface of the bin. The air movement will cool the bin like a cool breeze cools you in the heat of summer.

I hope this helps all of you to worm bin compost no matter what your conditions are.

Christy
VermiCulture Northwest

Can Different Worm Species Co-exist in the Same Environment?

These red worms are in a bed of shredded newspaper.

A question I was just asked recently that I get alot is whether you can use the worms you find in your garden or lawn in the worm bin. This most recent question asked if they could co-exist with the red worms.

Please be aware that the worms you find in your garden or lawn are soil dwellers and red worms are composting worms dwelling in piles of organic matter such as leaves, manure, rotting grass clippings, compost piles, etc.

As such these worms each have their own requirements for their environment that are very different. These worms do not naturally co-habitate. Even if you find them in the same area around a pile of organic matter, the soil dwellers are at the soil level and the compost worms are in the organic matter. This is the only situation where these two organic consumers will co-habitate. Soild dwellers will not thrive in a worm bin. They are not deep enough to provide the soil dweller with area to burrow.

One way to have each of the lovely creatures in the same area is to dig a hole and fill it with organic material. This would provide the best of both worlds for each of the worms, and the area could be heavily mulched to provide cover for the colder winter months. (That's for all of us wormers in the North.) The material in the hole would need to be removed and replaced with fresh organic material to keep your red worm composters happy and in place. Otherwise, they will go looking for fresh organic material if you do not provide it for them.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

For now, happy worming however you decide to do it.

Christy

http://www.vermiculturenorthwest.com

DIY Worm Bin 101

Here is the video I did to show you just how easy it is to build your own worm bin. Get started with something simple like this and use the experience to stimulate some ideas on other ways to worm bin compost.

Have fun!



Christy
The Wormn Lady
http://www.vermiculturenorthwest.com

First Harvest

I'm not sure how well you can see the worms all congregated in the corner of the bin, but that is about what it seemed like I had left in the worm bin after winter. My first peek in the bin on March 20th, the first day of spring, left me sad and full of regrets that I was not able to properly tend the bins before winter hit hard. I truly thought this was going to be the year I would have to consolidate all the worms into one bin and repopulate.

But I harvested my first pound of worms last night. And they were plentiful, fat, mating, and as I worked my way through the material there were lots of fresh cocoons. My bins are once again on the rebound and will be supplying me with a steady supply of worms and finished product.

With that being said, I have a DIYS worm bin to build. I will be filming and showing you just how easy it is to build your own worm bin.

Till next time,

Happy worming. What do you have planned for being green in the next year?

Christy
VermiCultureNorthwest.com

Moving Material

One aspect of a worm bin is what to do with the material after the worms have worked it and need fresh bedding. This is some of the most awesome stuff on earth! Seriously, if you are a gardener you will be in heaven when your bins get to the point that they need regular fresh bedding.

The container in this picture is one of the Large kiddie wadding pools you can pick up every year at KMart, or any such store. I have a number of them I have salvaged from the trash or yard sales. They are perfect for handling large quantities of material as they are not too deep and provide a good amount of surface area for drying the material.

This batch sat all winter and the bacteria and microbes continued to work the material until it was so fine it looked like soil. Mind you, I do not use any soil in my worm bins, not even the handful so many tell you to add to your bin when you start one out. I use manure so maybe I get enough soil mixed with the manure I don't need it, but my bins have never needed it.

I have a harvester that I put the material through that has an 1/8th inch screen on it and separates the finer castings material from the coarser compost. I estimate about 60 lbs. of castings came out of this batch (it would have been heavier but the material dried pretty good over the winter). I got 2 large, construction size wheelbarrow loads which I put on a bed I had prepared and that raised my bed up one landscape timber deep.

This is great stuff for the garden. Just one more reason to worm bin compost.

The Worms, They Never Fail Me

It always makes me happy to work my worm bins, because the worms never cease to amaze me.

When I first went out to the worm bins this spring I truly thought that this was going to be the year that I was going to have to start over.

Fall was a very busy time for me and I really didn't have the time to work the bins, and indeed hadn't worked the bins properly all summer. They were just plain neglected. But I knew that if I expected them to make it through winter that I would have to get fresh bedding and food stock worked into my schedule. Then winter hit! Early and hard.

The year before my greenhouse collapsed from the weight of the snow. If it hadn't that year it most certainly would have this. We went to bed one night with zero snow on the ground and woke up to almost 3'. WOW! I kid you not, this is what we woke up to. I opened the front door and couldn't believe my eyes.

Needless to say, my work was to clear the driveway and I never got a path shoveled out to the worms. I had visions of mice happily setting up housekeeping, having late night parties, and generally carousing and creating havoc in my worm bins.

Once I did get out to the bins, the population was dismal to say the least. One bin looked like it might have a population that might recuperate before the spring season was over. One was totally void of worms (the one without heat) and the other two literally had a handful of worms that were congregating in the corners of the bin. One of those bins is represented in the picture above. I truly can not believe all the worms I have in this bin already.

Still have a couple of more days to work on the worms. Will be setting up my video area to film the making of a DIY worm bin. And I have worms to harvest. Life is good.

Christy
The Worm Lady
VermiCultureNorthwest.com

Update on the Worm Bin - 4/18/09

The bins are starting to look pretty good now. Feed is disappearing in a couple of days which is an excellent sign the population is growing and becoming active.

Food waste placed in the bin a couple of weeks ago heated up to the low 80's for a couple of days, but now is reading normal - that would be about 67.

Going to take out harvested material and turn the bin, add new bedding. Then the worms should really take off. The temperatures are still cold at night, but the bins are heated.

Will need to process some of the material I harvested last fall to make room for more material. Everything takes time.

Excited to get my hands in the worm bin with a healthy population of worms. They are so miraculous, they facinate me, even after 10 wonderful years!

Christy
The Worm Lady

April Showers

Brings May Flowers!

I'm not sure this is what they meant when they coined that phrase, but this is what my world woke up to this morning.

Beautiful in it's appropriate season, but this is suppose to be Spring, right?

Anyway, I am excited to start bringing you new videos for the new season.

My first series will be on AACT or Actively Aerated Compost Tea.

There is a lot of mis-information circulating out there and other people just not understanding what it is that they are using when they use the liquid that comes from their worm bins.

Hopefully the series will clear up a lot of that.

The one thing we all must learn is that, "Life finds a way."

Even the most toxic, waste dumps eventually heal and new life starts. But how many lifetimes does it take, and do we really want to leave that for our children.

Composting properly, gardening and farming organically, and just treating the earth with respect will teach our children and show them we care about their inheritance.

We will expand our discussion this year. I hope you will stay with me and share your thoughts.

Christy

The Worm Lady

Handle your waste responsibly.

http://www.vermiculturenorthwest.com

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