Part of the fertility plan at Brookside Farm is the cycling
of food waste. The intent is to replace the minerals that leave the site with
food export, and we are using a vermiculture system (red worms) to make a
compost media. Worms are used because
they more rapidly break down food waste, which may otherwise attract rats to
the farm if left out in open compost piles.

One of our concerns is how well a worm bin will hold up to
the weather here, which varies from hot and dry summers to freezing, damp
winters. Our worms did fine during the
summer with occasional watering, and now that we have had extended periods of
hard frost (nights down to 20 degrees F) I thought it would be good to check on
them.

Many weeks have passed since the worms were last fed, and I
expect a large mass of compost media will not be subject to freezing. Our bin is also sunk into the ground by about
a foot, giving it temperature stability but perhaps making it susceptible to
water logging during heavy rain episodes.
The past week had over 4 inches of rain and last night it was very
cold. If there were going to be problems
I expected to find them today.

I pulled back the protective straw layer and found nearly
homogenous bedding. As I forked it into
a consolidated pile I did find clusters of worms, perhaps wrapped around the
remaining food pockets. The worms were
generally fairly large for the species.

The bin seems to be working well. Worms are not frozen, they are still active,
and the moisture content is high but not soggy. I put all the nearly-finished media into a
third of the bin space and am going to start the process again in the remaining
2/3.