Hot Weather Vermicomposting
When the weather is hot, your vermicomposting system will heat up, too. Composting worms are living creatures who operate best in a specific temperature range. Let’s find out how you can keep them cool in the warm months of the year. Our hearty vermicompost manufacturer in India composting worms are designed to handle a range of temperatures. Below 57 degrees Fahrenheit is a too cold— worm slow down and run the risk of dying. We don’t know exactly the hottest temperatures they can endure, but we do know this: Too hot is not good.
“Not good” could mean they start to dry up and die. If a few expire, it’s not too big a deal. But you don’t want a bin full of unhappy and, eventually, dead worms. The best things you can do are to try to keep the temperature down and keep the moisture level up. Also, control the worm population and minimize the vermin.
Balanced bedding: Add newspaper and bits of cardboard to keep their home balanced between carbon and nitrogen and nicely aerated. Toilet paper rolls, newsprint and egg cartons all work well. Make sure the bedding is overall a bit moist.
Reduced feeding: Worms don’t eat as much in the heat, so reduce the volume or pace of feedings leading up to and during a heat wave.
Make popsicles: Freezing and/or blending scraps helps your worms eat them faster and doubles as a way to cool the tray temperature. Worm popsicles!
Block ice: On scorcher days, when I don’t want to add any more food scraps, I put a bucket of ice, frozen as a block, into the feeding tray. I keep this block on hand through the summer so I’m always prepared for a heat wave. You could use any sort of container that will accommodate the expansion of water as it freezes.
A hot day here or there isn’t the end of the world, and worms are still fairly resilient creatures. My worms survived a heat wave above 40 last year when I was out of town and couldn’t give them some ice. Probably because they were already shaded, had decent bedding, and weren’t overfed in the lead up.
