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Warming Up With Cornmeal
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Posted by equinoxequinox (My Page) on Sun, Feb 7, 10 at 21:19
| Sprinkled 1/4 inch cornmeal to the top of the bin to warm it up a bit. Kept adding regular food on top as usual. No heating occured. I thought the 1/4 inch would be risking protein poisoning. But the worms seem fine even after regular additions. Just cold. Any surefire ways to heat up the cellar bin with food? |
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RE: Warming Up With Cornmeal
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I read that corn meal was OK...
Also Corn Mash for laying hens...??
Was thinking of buying a bag...
Anyone had any experience with the above?
My Gusanito is in the basement, I may put a small light bulb under the Gusanito & monitor the temps...
I have an Infrared Gun so taking the temps would be easy...
I also want to get a PH guage...
Bob |
RE: Warming Up With Cornmeal
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| Best I found was coffee grounds from the local rip-off stop-in-the-morning place. If you ask, they will save all the grounds in a bag for you to pick up (instead of them throwing in the garbage can). Dig a hole in the center of the bin and put in thin layer of grounds, cover, grounds, cover, etc. The grounds are low in acid (brewing removes the acid and puts it in your cup) and high in nitrogen. Nitrogen and carbon from brown waste breed the critters the worms love to eat as the grounds decay. The critters heat up the pile with all their activity. It's sure fire! |
RE: Warming Up With Cornmeal
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| I haven't found a "surefire" method. What has worked best so far is mixing ~.75 gal. of pre-rotted mush with .25 gal. of rice & bread crumbs. (I've read any grain can be used, so cornmeal should work. It just has to be wet.) I let this mix sit in the sun for a few hours before spreading it as a 2-3" feeding layer over half my worm bin. The microbial activity jump started by heat from the sun seems to continue in the dark bin and the bin temps in that region stay warmer for a few days. You just have to be careful not to overfeed. |
RE: Warming Up With Cornmeal
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| Sometimes if a bin gets too cold the microbial activity slows to a crawl and adding heat generating food doesn't help until the bin can warm up enough for the microbes start working again. To add some heat to the bin try filling a disposable water bottle with hot tap water (not scalding hot). Wrap the bottle in newspaper so that any worms that gets too close to the bottle won't cook. And cover it with the compost. You may have to replace the bottle a few times to get the compost warmed up. When the bin warms enough the microbes should be able to take over. |
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