Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Michael Nevin <mikepnevin@yahoo.ca>]

Hi - it might actually get colder in Colorado than here in Toronto, Ontario but one of the compost heroes in Toronto - the late Sam Hambly - used to line his worm bins with 1 or 2 inch slabs of styrofoam in winters. This provided just enough insulation that the worm and bacterial activity would keep the bins warm. And the styrofoam did not seem to poison the worms.

The worm bins would be loaded with food-scrap compost which had cooled into the mesophilic range -or, about 35 - 40 C.

Another trick of the tradei n order to keep bins from freezing up aside from maxing your southern exposure is to:

-use a burlap cover and then top this off with clear thick-guage plastic.

This plastic acts like a greenhouse and lets light in but helps trap infra-red.

Or, maybe you could use old windows to build a cold frame. Lots of gardeners will build a south-facing cold frame with old windows to trap the sun's heat on those sunny days in late winter and early spring. And erect barriers to block cold winds if possible.

Cheers, Mike in temporarily chilly Toronto, Ontario Canada

onezero <onezero@ecomail.org> wrote:

> All:
>
> Can anyone point to or know of a great resource for worm assisted compost. 
>
> We are in a snowy cold Winter here in Colorado and would love some advice on
> the practical use of worms for compost use.
>
> Some preliminary questions would be :
>
> Can they survive in the pile in Winter?
>
> If you invest in them will they freeze come hard Winter ?
>
> What about the location for a worm bin ? Well house ? 
>
> Can we replace the fish tank and pipe the fumes outside ?
>
> In general, wonderful list, Creasote & green wood discussion was a little
> much yet important.
>  
>
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