7
Apr

Spring Cleaning in the Worm Bin

   Posted by: Some Guy   in Gardening in Nevada, Worms

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Time to pull the heater out of the worm compost bin.

This winter, I had to rig up a thermostatically-controlled heater to keep the worms happy. Although the good folks at Worm Wigwam sent along another compost heater after the bear destroyed the original one, the replacement heater just got too hot, driving the worms out of the bin. The heater is simple enough: it’s a coil of heater wire with a basic fixed-setting thermostat attached in-line, which is stapled to a sheet of plywood with a mylar reflector.

To overcome the overheating problem, I purchased a Dwyer TS-13010 industrial temperature control (AKA, a thermostat) for about $55.00 and wired a standard, grounded edison socket to it. The included probe got placed under the heater, beneath the first inch of kitchen scraps, and the heater was plugged into the thermostat assembly. I set the thermostat to 64 degrees, and the worms were happy all winter long. They quickly devoured anything that was under the heater, but I frequently had to shovel the refrigerated waste that was at the edges so that it would be under the heater.

It’s also time to clean the WormCam camera, shake the spiders out of the ethernet port, and update the firmware. Hopefully, this will increase the WormCam uptime.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Gardening in Nevada, Worms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

2 comments so far

Bob Baker
 1 

I, too, am thinking that our WW heater gets awfully hot, so I’m intrigued by your thermostat solution. I’m also curious if I had a bunch of worms either jump ship or die. In my old worm bins, there was lots and lots of squirmy activity, and of course, with the WW, all the activity is out of sight. Finally, the stuff we crank out seeks really wet, and over the last six months about 5 gallons of worm tea has dripped from the system. Is this okay. I’m just adding kitchen scraps and damp sawdust, but it seems like everything is too wet. I’d appreciate your thoughts…thanks for the blog!

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Error: Unable to create directory /var/www/vhosts/someguyinnevada.com/subdomains/blog/httpdocs/wp-content/uploads/2012/02. Is its parent directory writable by the server?Some Guy replied:
April 9th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Hi Bob–

Even with the heater, our bin stays damp, but not wet. The only extra moisture we introduce is when we add moistened, corrugated cardboard. For bedding, we use cellulose packing material in which a local garden supply had received statuary. It looks like loose coils of string made of wood: loose and stringy, and has enough air space to let moisture pass through.

If you’re using particulate sawdust, and not shavings, that’s probably the source of your extra moisture in the bin. Try picking up some coconut coir fiber at the local garden store (not the cocoa mulch). THe folks at Sustainable Agricultural Tech told me that made for an ideal bedding.

I suppose the best test of how your bin is doing is how fast your worms are devouring your scraps. We go through about a bucket every 5-7 days.

If you’re worms are jumping ship, you’ll see little dried worm carcasses on the floor around the bin. (That’s experience talking)

I’ve been meaning to get some photos of the thermostat up here, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

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April 9th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
veratex comforter sets
 2 

I don’t know much about worms. I’d probably jump if I see one. But yeah, I think they’re good used as fertilizers. Great read!

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April 7th, 2010 at 9:42 pm

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