Worm bin question

Is it possible/feasible/recommended to place a worm bin in an insulated-but-unheated greenhouse?

I posed this over on the GH forum, but so far I haven't gotten any replies, so I figured this was the next logical stop.

If it's possible to have one in the GH, there are some real benefits, like the convenience of taking the scraps to the place I'll be hanging out anyway; and having a ready supply of fertilizer (liquid and solid) for my GH plants.

But before I try it, I am concerned about temperatures, and don't want to freeze the poor things. Does anyone know the minimum temperatures for a worm bin? And/or have any advice or tips for me? (Like what shape/size bin is best if you're making your own - I'm a tightwad at heart, and $50+ for a plastic tub seems a bit much...)

I helped set up a friend w/a store-bought worm bin last year. He loves it!
Just went to the site I recommended. Their "rules" state that worms do just fine in temps ranging from 40 - 80*. Sooooo...if your ghouse goes below 40 it may harm the worms. My personal thought is if there is a projected low temp of below 40 then I'd try just using a light bulb either under or near the bin...seems to me the worms would flock to the light.
Not sure how the cooler temps would fit in with how the breakdown of the food-to-compost cycle tho. I'd sure try the lite bulb thing tho!

Thanks, 'shoe!

Now, I'd think the worms will actually shy away from light, won't they? (I thought in my reading, they say to pull the cover off a few days before you start removing the castings, as it'll drive the worms deeper into the bin so they're not harmed during the removal process. But I could be wrong 'bout that.

And I'm also wondering - if I placed the bin in a "pen" of straw bales, and threw a thick old blanket over it at night, I'd guess that if the GH gets down to (just guess-timating) say 35, the temperature around the worm bin would stay a few degrees warmer...

And if the outside temps are projected to fall down into the teens or lower, I could always either bring the bin inside (I have a big laundry room...) or go the lightbulb route.

And I'm still looking for as many tips/tricks as possible to setting it up and maintaining it!

Yep, you're right about the light, vols. I was thinking the light would be under the bin, offering heat only, no light.
If the ghouse temp goes down really low, won't you have your heater on? Or is your ghouse gonna be totally empty of plants during the winter?
(In my g-house I drop plastic and just heat a fourth of it when there are only a few things in there...wonder if that is feasible for you also.)
Am also wondering if you go the plastic tub route if you could sit it on a heat mat, or a heating pad. And now that I think about it, maybe get a big cardboard box (like what a stove or fridge comes in) and put it in there, with a heat pad/mat, then you'd just be heating that small area instead of a fourth of the greenhouse. Hmmmm....

the worms will go to the warmest spot in the bin in cold weather the straw bales should keep them warm enough you are like us it doesn't stay below freezing over a day or two

Thanks, dave719, that's what I'm thinking/hoping will happen.

Now for the next big question (assuming that making the bin is no big deal)...where to buy the worms. In the Watchdog we have almost 40 companies listed under Composting/Vermiculture: http://gardenwatchdog.com/vbc/70/
and I'd guess that at least half of them sell worms (Who'da thunk there are THAT many mail-order suppliers of worms???)

Or can I just go down to the bait/tackle shop and buy a couple pounds of red wigglers? (Which seems a lot cheaper and easier, quite honestly...)

Vols a pound is about a 1000 worms the bait shop sells in dozens or 50 the reason i know anything about this is that we are about ready to start 25 jr. does rabbits and i have been looking at worms verses going straight to the garden with my pellets another crop to sell and still get my plant food

I raise earthworms in a bigger bin a few years.
1.To use the earthworms as bait for angling.
2.To use the earthworms to produce humus soil
for potted flowers.
The earthworms are cold-blooded.
They can adjust their body temperature.
According to my personal experience,
if you keep the soil in a damp state,
they will live well all year round.

Vols, go buy a plastic storage tub at WalMart, etc. Drill some air holes in the top and around the upper sides. Maybe a few in the bottom to let out excess water but cover those with screen wire to keep the worm in. Set on a thick layer of newspapers, straw, a heating pad, etc. to keep it up off the ground. Surround it with bags of leaves, bales of straw, etc. Hang a heat lamp or large watt bulb above the top. The worms need air so don't cover the top tightly.
Fishing worms may be more expensive, but right now I think that is probably the only place you will be able to buy them. this time of the year. They will multiply rapidly as soon as the conditions are right for that. I doubt you need anywhere near a 1000 worms. A hundred is a LOT of worms for a stoage tub of medium size.
GOD bless and best wishes.

The worms can be multiplied by cutting into sections.
I feel,100 will turn into 1000 within a year's time.

I am an amateur at this, and perhaps did not understand all of the details spoken of above, but having started a little worm farm of my own, I have a few remarks:

1. Earthworms and redworms are different, I believe, and the worms you want to eat vegetable waste and produce compost are redworms (according to Rodale's book about this).

2. Worm metabolism is a carefully studied and quantifiable thing. In general, each five degrees F increase in temperature above 50 degrees will increase worm metabolism approximately five percent. By this is meant rate of vegetable matter consumption and rate of reproduction. At 40 degrees F, redworms are essentially dormant (according to my wife, a scientist).

3. Worms have four larval stages and one adult stage. They reproduce in the adult stage only, yet consume vegetable matter to produce compost in three of the larval stages. The highest percentage of larval worms will reach adulthood to reproduce at temperatures above 65F and below 80F (my wife again).

4. Keeping the worm farm environment evenly moist might be the single most important factor in having happy healthy worms. I place a pad of moistened newspaper over the critters as they munch their way through my veggie scraps (personal trial and error here).

5. Everything produced by your worm farm is pure gold. In setting up your worm farm, be sure to perforate the bottom of your tub and put a screen over the holes as described by a fellow member. AND be sure to have a little basin below your tub to catch the run off. This runoff is very rich in humates / humic acids, the substance essential in soil for plants to take up nutrients via cation exchange. The liquid gold coming out of the bottom of your wormfarm will be about pH 6.5, can be diluted for use as a foliar spray, can be added to water for house plants, can be poured full strength onto soil (it will not burn roots), and is the very stuff that makes healthy soil smell like healthy soil.

Have fun, wiggle wiggle ;~)

Adam.

This reminds me of something I read in Farmers Weekly a few years ago. The farmers wife was in charge of the Worm Farm which was suffereing due to the previous winter being cold and the heating in the sheds didn't work well so the worms didn't reproduce as fast as they could of.

In order to save money on the venture she turned off the lights at night thinking the worms would be asleep, she woke to find all the worms had escaped during the night! Took them a lot of man hours to find the majority of the livestock *G*. After that they weighted down the lids in case there was a power failure.

Excellent ideas and information here. I'm going to start "low cost" and use a Rubbermaid bin with holes drilled in side and bottom. From what I have read, once the worms are done with that layer - and if you stick a bin with holes on the bottom on top of the "completed bin" the worms will migrate upwards to the new bin. Anyone had luck with that approach yet? Hoping I can find a local source for worms that isn't too expensive, as they won't be hardy enough for winter mailing, I suspect.

I own a Can~o~Worms manufactured worm farm. It has three tiers, and each tier has holes in its bottom. The instructions say to begin by putting the worms and the material they are to eat in the lowest tier. The humic acid solution drips into a collecting basin under that.

As the first bin is full of finished compost and the worm population increases, you begin putting the material the worms are to eat in the middle tier. The worms DO migrate upwards to the next level searching for food. The humic acid solution continues to percolate down through the levels into the collecting basin.

This has worked exactly as the instruction booklet described, and I have rotated the bins a couple time, emptying the finished compost out of the lowest one and placing it, once empty, on the top as the highest tier.

One hint: "seed" the next higher tier with a bit of finished compost to get it started, to encourage the little guys to climb up into a comfy home.

Each tier has LOTS of holes. The entire bottom surface is perforated. Make DOZENS of holes. The worms will climb up more readily, This also helps the farm drain. The holes are just under 1/4 inch diameter.

I would have gone the cheapest route, but I figured that as it's kept in the kitchen during the cold months, might as well get something looking a bit more finished (there is absolutely no smell).

Adam.

would a worm farm be good for kids? I thought about getting them rabbit so I could have the poop for the garden I posed this question on the garden web and was dismayed to learn that rabbits are now house pets! the plan is to teach the kids responsibility and provide me with compost for my strawberries and other stuff. In the fall couldn't you put the worm in the basement?

Are you wanting to create a worm bin using rabbit droppings? My neighbor has rabbit hutches, from which I gladly haul off the "berries", but there aren't that many worms in it, that I can see. Also, getting the waste hauled off is messy enough without having to get the worms to move aside ;o) If you decide to go with rabbits, and you want to harvest the waste, be sure to create easy access to the droppings. My neighbor wasn't particularly interested in using the manure, so getting to it is a bit tricky.

Worm bins (as others will tell you) need to be kept at 40 degrees or higher in order for the worms to remain active (digesting food scraps.) Adam/Aotearo keeps his bin in his NYC apartment, so he's the master of the odorless worm bin. If you're interested in keeping it indoors, he'd be the person to ask the how-to questions.

No I thought it would be nice for the kids to have rabbit to take care of and maybe take them to fair later...but another forum I posed this question i was amazed that rabbits have become indoor pets since I was a kid then we didn't worry about the rabbits being depressed from being in a hutch all the time. Then I thought about worms instead....but they couldn't go to the fair later though...

When she was a little girl, my wife had a pet rabbit that lived in a cage in her bedroom. Apparently she left the door of the cage open all the time and it would go back inside to sleep or to do its business in a corner. Otherwise, it stayed in her bedroom and liked to hang out or sleep on a pile of school books and nibble on the corners of paper.

"My bunny ate my homework."

Adam.

I take on Bunny droppings as a treasure.
For years my several containers of waterlilies
bloom fruitfully.the main reason,i feel,
is that they are benifit from bunny droppings.
as you know,water plants, one of which problems is
how to give them fertilizer.
i gathered from my nephew's rabbit cages the droppings
and with a little stick made holes in the mud,
and then dropped the droppings inside the holes.
that's bingo.

Yes, bunnies have become house pets in a lot of cases, but there are still bunnies being raised in cages outdoors. Some people set up a kitty litter box for the rabbit potty. Rabbit manure is a cool manure which won't burn plants (or worms?), but I don't think that is true if the urine is mixed with the bunny berries. As I was reading this thread I was thinking that the ideal heater for a worm bin might be an old waterbed heater if you happen to have one (I do!) and I think it will go from being a seed starter mat in my basement to keeping a series of worm bins warm in the greenhouse when that becomes a reality. Soon!!

I live on the western side of Michigan USA, and I just bought a composting bin to assemble. We do have occasional cold winters here, so I wonder if the cold-blooded red worms hibernate over the winter like reptiles.

I plan to fill the bin with organic top soil up to the top of the openings in the bottom, then gradually add vegetable waste and more soil.

I was interested to read about rabit manure being used by some. I assume that this compliments vegatable manner. Would cow manure be acceptatle. How about some canisters of drowned Japanese beetles?

I am new at composting, so I would appreciate all the help that I can get.

I dom't know just where you are at on the west side but if you make your bin 4 ft square and 24 inches deep you should be able to winter them all right most years the frost line is 18 inches and your compost should keep it warm enough to be above freezing in the middle