Frozen compost

I have 3 bins outside with compost in them, also a lot of worms. I think the worms will be OK because they go down into the ground, but will my compost still be "good"? We have had almost a week of freezing weather, everything froze to the bone. What a bummer! This is a bit unusual for us, although we get quite a bit of snow it's not usually this cold.

Your compost, when it thaws, will be fine. My compost freezes every year. One thing that I have noticed is once it thaws, it will shrink fairly quickly. I think the freezing helps break down cellular structure, so when it does thaw, it tends to decompose faster.

Oh, good news. I have one bin that was ready early in the Fall but didn't use it. By Spring it should be perfect, it's full of worms. I am so ready for Spring already. Gardening as an addiction is a game of patience for me.-- Love it!! Thanks for answering.
Jacquie

Not to worry about freezing. Our compost stays frozen solid about 5 months out of the year and still can get about a ton of sifted compost.
We find alot of worms in the piles of dead leaves we rake to the edge of our property and let winter over. But once the leaves go into the
compost bins it gets to hot and the worms crawl out.
...........................................................................Dennis.........

A Ton?????? My goodness!

Diguimo:
I'm a native California boy,but an Alaskan by choice. Cant place Pioneer....When I went south to go to college I set up house keeping in the Napa Valley.
I had a small veggie garden then, but wasn't hard core gardener then..If I was I would have turned out truck loads off compost every two months. With the warm temps and abundance of foliage.
I'm happy no freeways, air polution and only 600,000 in the whole state. "the largest state".
.......................................Dennis..........................

Yeah but Dennis - I hear the mosquitos in Alaska all wear samurai headbands! ;-)

Ours freezes also and I chip out the compost (finished) and take it in the house in the winter for compost tea. I let it soak for a week or so and seem to have happy house plants. I agree that the unfinished stuff collapses pretty fast but the finished compost is pretty much unchanged. I keep 3 piles going Weezingreens. New/partial/finished.

ummmm soferdig, is it smelly?

No I can smell a soil odor but that is not smelly. I don't use corn meal and molasses though. I think that is where the fermentation odor comes from. Also when I have used the water for house plants I let the pile sit without water in the pail to continue cooking aerobically.

Soferdig: We too use a 3 bin method, sort of.
Our first bin isn't really a bin, its big piles of dried leaves rake up in the fall from our cottonwood, alder and willow trees. Then left to spend the winter under the snow.
By the time break up has come and gone the piles are on their way to bin #1, with any green we can rustle up, I also cheat a little and add a few pounds of urea to get the nitrogen levels up a bit and get the heat up and going.
My secret additive gets added in June, (that when the salmon start running) I take my salmon catches out to table by the compost and
fillet them. Then bury the carcasses in the pile, have to bury them deep so the flies wont make a meal out of them. After a couple of weeks you can't even find a bone, they break down that fast.
Then it's time to scoop #1 bin over to #2 and start a new batch in #1. In a few more weeks it's time to sift #2 through a 1/2 inch screen and it's ready to go.( I broke my collar bone last July and was pretty much out of action the rest of the summer) so duty of sifting fell on Weez, what a trooper!
We will start the growing season off with a tote with 48 cubic ft. of sifted, dry compost.
So thats how we do it up here.................................Dennis aka "the ol'tom cat

Good Idea Dennis. We only have dead deer to compost here in the spring. And usually the eagles have cleaned them up as soon as they get exposed. I fortunatly have some cow manure in the Flathead Valley. You and I end up with the same volume of compost but I get sometime 2 batches spring and late summer. We have a chipper shredder so pine/fir debris is all summer and provides 1/3 of our volume. Lots of Pine needles. This year I am going to start using them for mulch instead of bark. I am going to chip them cause I do not like the needle look in the mulch area. Also they don't hold on to moisture like bark. Hopefully they will break down faster as chipped and shredded pine.

Soferdig: Didn't know if you were kidding or not about the deer ? Have alway understood, no red meat in the compost.
First it doesn't break down that great, attracts vermin and in your neck of the woods like mine, the big vermin Bears....
In your area it should be easy to get all the old bedding straw from stables free for the taking, droppings from rabbit hutches compost just fine.
This year we're going exotic, Lama poop. A school teacher here has a string of 7 pack lamas he uses to take in fisherman into high alpine lakes. Not really the fisherman, just their gear, the fisherman still have to walk. But a 20 mile hike without a heavy pack don't sound too bad.
.......................................Dennis..............................

Yes we don't have salmon cleanings to break up quickly. The deer carcass are left by the roadside to feed the bears, eagles, ravens, and the occasional cat.