Preparing your worm farm for summer

Hello

as spring is showing its impacts all over the northern hemisphere and summer is just around the corner we will have to prepare our worm farms to be ready for the hot weather we might encounter!

If the bedding of a worm farm gets to hot it will force the worms to either leave or face certain death!

Protecting worms in summer when the temperatures can rise and even we humans might suffer from the hot conditions is important and not a difficult task.

The first and obvious solution is to provide some shade protection for your worm bin.

There are many ways you can go about this. You can place bins under trees, in a garage, a store room, under a sun roof, in an

alley that gets only very little sun or any other place on your property that gets exposure to the sun for a limited time, either in the early morning or late afternoon when the impact of the sun is not that strong.

Should you not be able to make use of any of the above mentioned options which are basically free of charge, than you should provide your worms with some custom built sun protection.

Protecting worms in summer with second hand carpets on top of a strong plastic sheet are a good and inexpensive solution.

Old wooden boards might fulfill the same purpose.

Another possible alternative is to set up a roof of shade cloth that you can purchase from most large nurseries and garden suppliers...

If you want to make some extra money with your worm farming project why don't you get yourself a copy of my book How to srart a profitable worm business on a shoestring budget It will explain in detail all you need to know to create an income with your earthworms! It is exceptionally low priced at the moment available as a printed soft cover book at Amazon or a Digital version on the "Kindle"

...This is obviously a more costly solution and in my opinion not needed if one takes advantage of one of the no cost or low cost environmentally friendly recycling solutions mentioned above.

Should the temperatures be above 35 C / 95 F in the shade than it becomes really dangerous for your worms.

In this instance you should consider filling up your worm farm with as much bedding as possible.

I would suggest a mix of slightly wet compost and worm castings. This additional bedding will act as an insulator against extreme temperatures and might give the worms the opportunity to hide in the depths of the worm bed furthest away from the heat.

Other important points are to make sure that there is a way for hot air to leave the worm bin and the worm bedding and worm food stay moist during an extended time of hot weather.

Those steps in addition with shade protection should keep your worms safe from any heatwave that might hit your town.

If you have any suggestions or questions please feel free to let me know!

Kind regards and happy worming

till next time

Stephan Kloppert ------------------------------------------------------------------- info@worm-composting-help.com www.worm-composting-help.com

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