I don't know about Austin, you get far more water than we do, down here in SA, but also your temps swing more than ours do here. We get a lovely coastal breeze most afternoons, etc.

But Eisenia Fetidas are pretty much the way to go unless you have some extra problems, and since you are keeping yours in a bin on a balcony, I don't imagine (unless it's food) you will have much trouble with them. The woman near San Marcos raises blues, however, so there ARE choices. You may want to talk to her. I found her on another vermicomposter's forum, she cn be found at http://vermicomposters.ning.com/
,on their interactive map. My computer and nings do not like one anther much, I don't go there all that often, but if you can use the equipment, it's good to find people nearby.

I did not have my squirm last summer, and didn't acquire it until last October, but if we have another summer like last year's, I am bringing them into the AC for the weeks we go over 98 at night, certainly. Otherwise they are on a shaded back porch, and do fine.
Gina

You might look into African Nightcrawlers (Eudrilus eugeniae) for higher temp tolerance. There is some literature claiming they die in temps under 50F but a local worm farmer I spoke with said they survive fine to near freezing but they are much less productive in temps under 70F as compared to Red Wiggler (Eisenia fetida) or European Nightcrawler (Eisenia hortensis). If you go with African Nightcrawlers, then you might need to bring the bin indoors over the winter.

I run EF's in South Australia, we get regular heatwaves of 5+ days in a row over 100 degrees F. For summer, I have removed the lid (using COWs) and placed a mat cut from carpet underfelt on top of the bedding. I keep this damp. and the evaporation keeps the bin cool. I sit a fly screen across the top of the bin to keep the bugs out.

The worms were eating the mat pretty fast too, so I then put a liner of woven weed matting down first and that has kept the worms out of the underfelt. The worms have thrived.

A bin with enough damp bedding/compost material should be ok in 100ºF air temps as long as the bin is in full shade. However, if you put a smallish (12 gal.) bin in the sun...even if air temps are only 70ºF your worms will eventually get cooked.

Andrew

what would be the minimum size to give the worms enough insulation, if 12 gallons is too small?

I found a possible solution, too. I read somewhere one can freeze the kitchen waste into small amounts, like a cup at a time, then place that frozen waste into the center of the bin. The chill helps keep the heat down and the heat helps unfreeze the kitchen waste to be eaten. Rather elegant solution, I thought.

Let us know what you decide to do~ I am thinking a large bin with two to three pounds would also be warmer than my ten pound bucket with 1.5 pounds. Wish I knew when I will need to add the second bin for flow thru, as well.

I just added four worms to a 27gal bin I was using to try out potatoes in. To plant potatoes one had to layer garden soil (I made a mix including potting soil, sand etc) and some sort of leaves or garden mulch. So~ had a bin with layers, and threw in four to five EF's. We will see what happens. The mulch I used was live oak and red oak leaves, which is what I have been using for bedding with the main worm bin. Hope to get good squash out of it by the end of summer! Just used four as that was what came to hand, and figured I didn't want to over-do. The bucket will supply a great deal of food for the worms.

Gina

I'm thinking of the old swamp coolers we used to have when I was a kid. Could you drape towel or gunny sack in frame across top of bin and one end in bucket of water? Water would 'wick' up the cloth and air movement will provide cooling.

Hi, at least one thing you could do is to insure that your bin is not under direct sun light, thus on shade, this will help you a lot. Feeding your worms with frozen kitchen waste is also a good idea.

@randomz: is that true a that almost 1/4 of Australian families is doing vermicomposting using the COW? A french site importing the COW in France is commenting this, i was wondering if this was true.

Cheelo, I doubt the figure would be anywhere near 1/4 doing vermicomposting. I now have 2 other friends into it, one with a COW, the other using an old fridge on a small farm. I have also come across 3 families that had worms but no longer do. Lost interest I guess, one donated his old worm factory to me. He had used it himself, then passed it to his son, but he had lost interest too.

COWs are popular though, but there is also a lot of ignorance about getting them to work well. I recently went to a worm/composting session run at the local library. It seemed a lot of the people there wanted to get their COWs eating more waste, yet the expert was a totally clueless lady that has been composting for 20 years and hasn't learnt anything new since.

One example, talking of harvesting, she said worms move towards the light!! When somebody suggested she was wrong, she held up a plastic bag of worms/compost that had been sitting on the table tipped it over to show the bottom where the worms had congregated to get away from the light and cackled "See, the worms have come to the light!".

Anyway, I think the biggest issue is losing worms due to heat, and as long as you leave the lid on during summer, worms are going to die.

Reln has also recently gotten greedy and reduced the COW to only coming with 2 working trays instead of 3 with a small reduction in price. This has annoyed a lot of the local worming communities, so COWs are not getting the same support on the ground that they used to get.

RandomZ, I almost can't beleive you hahahha. I agree, I believe there is a lot of people that doesn't really know vermicomposting but they thing they know, as a lot of thing in the life. But anyway, i'm vermicomposting since almost 7 years and i'm still learning, but that's definatly a good one: "worms move towards the light".

Thanks for your feedback, indeed i had a lot of dough about 1/4 families had a COW.

BTW, another question: Why do you think people are loosing interest in vermicomposting after sometimes?

I am not really sure. One neighbour said he was worm farming for about 6 years then lost interest about 18 months ago. I think the others just didn't feel it was a success.

At the meeting in the library, I could read that a lot of people were frustrated that their COW wasn't really doing much, not even coping with their daily food waste. I could well imagine these people giving up after a while, yet most likely their problem was simply over heating in our hot summers.

My COW was only a few months old, but was taking all our fresh food scraps for a family of 3 with a healthy vegetable intake, but I paid a lot of attention to keeping it cool.

quentinfool: I have an outdoor wormery in Austin, so can say it is possible. Basic EF. My technique isn't quite standard, but the housing is: a small homebrew version of a planter-topped wormery, made of stacked one-gallon planters, the number of layers varying according to need, placed in an area that gets morning sun (for the plant) but afternoon shade (to keep the stacked planters from overheating). No need for heroic cooling efforts or anything. The one I put in full sun didn't fare so well, but that may have been the BSFL as much as the summer heat.

Best of luck!

DSF

Subscribing

Now thats funny :)