Hope everyone's worms ok in the cold snap

[Smallthings]

Hope everyone has had a good Christmas. Just wondering how people have managed through the recent freezing temperatures (yourselves as well as your worms!) Hope all have survived intact! I was very worried about my herd in the prolonged sub-zero nights and at one point it dropped to -8. They are in an unheated wooden shed, I couldn't do anything to make the temp inside the shed go above freezing but I wrapped the bin in bubble wrap, paper and towels in the hope of insulating it agains the worst of it. But when I opened it one morning after a particularly cold night and put my hand in the top tray, I could barely open the lid as it was iced up and the (mostly newspaper) bedding was crunchy/solid and frozen in all the corners! I was horrified and thought the worms were all doomed. However very relieved and amazed to find since that somehow they have survived! I think they must have all gone down to the lower bins and 'huddled' together in the middle? I never looked to see where they went but they're back up to the top tray and feeding now it's milder at last. Marvellous little creatures I'm astounded at their resilience but think I was very lucky this time. I do hope that everyone else has managed ok too, it's been really tough all round.

[WillyWorm]

Hi Smallthing, glad your herd survived. I had some worms in a plastic garden storage box, I wrapped them in bubble wrap and night and morning tacked one or two four pint milk containers of hot water under the bubble wrap. Worms are very resilient the more brown material you can get in your bin to act as insulation the better because it will add to the thermal bulk.

Good luck keep up the good work.
Willy

[Lilwriggler]

Mine have done ok in the garage. It didn’t get so cold down here and the carpet insulation kept them cosy enough. I even harvested the bottom tray from each wormery on Christmas eve so that i could restock the top tray with lots of extra dry bedding for extra insulation. I do have a dirth of castings and homemade compost at the moment as my beds are covered in woodchip for winter. I have had to stop composting whilst the latest working bin is breaking down so it is only the top worm food being retained….

[Red]

Hi. Just checked on mine. All seem ok. Not much consumption this time of year. I have plenty of cardboard, paper etc in there. I don’t like to disturb them too much during the cold spell, rather keep them wrapped up.