sand, compost and worm question

Greetings~
This is my first post in this forum, but I have anoyed or entertained people in others...
We live in the Great Basin desert of Nevada in the sand bed of what used to be an inland sea. It is sand at least 5 ft down with almost no organic material. Sage and tumbleweed find some nutrients somewhere, but I am at a loss to know where... I am in the process of covering everything in cheap (realtively speaking) shredded wood mulch for water conservation and am starting my first compost pit (piles of anything above ground will get swept away by 50 MPH gusty winds and added to the next sandstorm/dust storm)...
My questions are these:
1. if I keep composting and improving the sand in my raised beds with home-grown and imported compost/soil/composted cow manure, will I eventually get worms?
2. what might be some ways to keep moisture in the compost pit? The sand is FAST draining, the humidity in the LOW single digits, the temps finally coming down out of the mid to high 90's*F. Any design ideas/considerations for it? I plan to cover it with chickenwire laid across the top weighted down with some big rocks to keep the dogs from digging and maybe hold some of the compostables from blowing away.
Thanks for any thoughts/ideas/comments.
KMom

Howdy KMom.
It is odd how the RM folks congregate (and did moreso before we had the RM forum) in the soils forum.

Firstly, you are a tough cookie to boldly garden out in the sand boonies. It will get easier as organics build up, and you are on a high path to success already.

1. Organic material, especially less-decomposed, will attract worms. It is rare to have a soil with no worms, even the desert. But it can happen for whatever reason. So, if you find you don't have any worms after a few months, spend a buck on a cup of fishing bait- buy different species if possible (redworms, nighcrawlers, etc) and put them in a moist, amended spot. They will supply a population to match the organics added to the soil. I don't know how they do it, but they sense raw composts and come in from what mst be far distances to feed. I have seen worms in the craziest places, even deep deep in the dry subsoil.

2. A leaf layer in the compost pit will mat down and make a bit of a layer that will slow down the water travel. Depth of the hole will find suprisingly cool soil that will hold the mopisture better. But sheer bulk and quantity of compost (plus covering mulches, etc are more ideal. Even more ideal would be to make a three-walled concrete-bottomed compost storage.

I have an odd leafmold pile that never gets watered, yet it still manages to be moist any time I work in it. I think its high organic content action may be wicking it from the ground, from the neighbor's lawn!

Sagebrush and all those have super clever roots- some deep ones to tap water meters down, and some fine ones on the surface that absorb the nutrients from any detritus/bug dung that may collect in their windshadow. The topsoil there technically has a fraction of one percent organic matter. They are operating on an admirable extreme efficiency.
Kenton

Fancy meeting you here, Kenton...

Leaves are far between and few around here, but you've fired up the noggin, and I'm thinking a layer of cardboard on the bottom might work, too. I am thinking 10 ft long by the width of the tractor bucket (about 5 or 6 ft?) by 4 ft deep - mostly since I know I can dig a hole like that with the tractor without any fancy shoring up of the sand sides. Layer with some cardboard on the bottom and sides?, use some dried sage and tumbleweed for the carbons, and scround any source of green I can. Start filling from one side of the trench and move across to the other side. I don't want to take out any currently living sage or tumbleweed for greenery as that is pretty much all that is holding down the sand in most areas... I am stealing coffee grounds from work (I don't drink coffee), but that only amounts to about a 1/2 gallon of grounds a day... maybe I should querry the local starbucks... and the local grocery store for "produce trash"... I have a 6ft pickup bed... my turn for cow presents soon... SOME DAY I will not have to rely on Home Depot for compost and mulch! I'd love to have a concrete walled above ground composting area, but concrete is currently being used for other projects and I'm too wimpy to work concrete myself. And if I put it on the Honey-Do list and wait for DH, well, I'll have even more grey hair. He understands planting large rocks, small rocks, trees, and digging post holes, but doesn't get things like flowers and compost...or basil, for that matter.

You need to relate your garden to his anticipation of Sundays Football game. Lots of hope for the team to win, anticipation of the big play, painting his face with the team colors, and most importantly everything is dependent on the Quaterback to get the ball rolling. Hello kmom both Kenton and I work here and play in RM forum. Steve.
Oh this is what happens when you turn native soil into a garden dream. Good luck.

Funny how you two keep popping up in my life...

my raised veggie garden (4x8) is quite nice - sandy loam (1/2 native sand and half expensive purchased "garden soil" and purchased composted cow manure - mixed together and 18 inches deep) - but I can't afford to do that for acres and acres if I have to BUY all the additives... so I'm making friends with the family down the road who have a few cows - and free for the hauling, I can periodically scam some bovine gold... next year I'm going to have a dozen chickens or so, so I see calcium additives and much hot nitrogen in the future... maybe adding a few goats the year after... too bad the multitudinous jack rabbits don't seem to leave enough bunny buttons to be usefull around here... :-)

Call up your local septic tank guy and have him dump and disc the goodies on your property. They are always looking for places to use. Seriously it is already pretty composted and rich in nitrogen. Then all you have to add is sawdust, wood chips, or straw. And you have created a garden of eden. Like making a silk purse out of a sows ear.

hmmm, interesting idea... there is a roofing truss making plant opening up in a few months, and I'm guessing they will have more sawdust than they know what to do with... as long as we don't let the county know - they get freaky over the "human waste" thing. I've got an acre of future pasture to condition (sowing to winter rye green manure - supposed to have been done by now, but hopefully by mid sept if I can get my act together). And with all the loverly UVA and UVBs up here, probably don't even need plastic on top of the ground to sanitize (unfortunately, another side effect is a high rate of skin cancer up here, too) - just let it sit and then turn it over and let it sit some more, repeat a few times.
By the way, my water table is about 175 ft down, and since the sand is FAST draining around here, do you think this or my original pit bin thought would impact it? (There is no "dig a hole, fill with water, wait and hour" to see how fast your soil drains - you cannot fill the hole unless you are passing more than a gallon a minute around here)
Such good food for thought. Thanks! Again!

"... bovine gold..."

In an area of human concentration you would find problems with septic use. But mostly by disc delivery to your land you will have rich wanna be growing soil. Japan fed their familys off their own (improved) soil for centuries. Just don't ask and don't tell. LOL