My guess would be zero survival of worms. Cocoons might survive but even if they did the process would have to start from scratch each year when the weather warms.

I have E Hortensis outside here with the occasional teens overnight though they have access to earth so they can go as deep as they need to and they are also heavily mulched around their feed buckets. There is no doubt that in warmer conditions they would do better but we have no inside for them.

I seem to recall the worm factory instruction book saying that the average temperature needs to fall in the 40-80 range, and that if it spent part of the day out of that range, it would be ok because the bedding takes a while to heat up or cool off. That said, if your lows are in the teens, I think the whole thing would get too cold and kill everything. Also, since the worms are depending on spoilage for their eating, the low temps are going to slow that way too far down.

Not only do they need moderate temps to survive, they will not thrive without them. 1000 worms living in <60 degrees will produce very poor growth and activity. Ideal temps (70 or so): lots of new wormies and vermicompost.

chuckiebtoo

Exactly the very reason I chose to have my bins inside. My ultimate goal is usable vermicompost come spring and prefer to have my worms happy and working 24/7 turning my garbage into black gold. Thats 70 F bedding temp I might add.

Hummer - How long does it take 1000 worms to turn a tray full of food to vermicompost at about 65 degrees?

To many variables.

Charlieboring,

I am no expert like many on here but I will try to answer your question about how long to "turn a tray full of food...."

My experience has been (and the Worm Factory people also say) that the first tray should take around 3 months. This is almost exactly how long it took me to get my first harvest although I still put the harvesting off several weeks for reasons unrelated to anything vermicomposting. My next tray took around 5-6 weeks to compost. I would love to get down to 4 weeks per tray as the Worm Factory people say is common...but I do think that is a bit ambitious.

Also, my answer is assuming a properly maintained bin. Proper temp, moisture, food, etc.

Hope that helps.

Byrdmando

PS. My bin temp stays in the 60-65 degree range.

I've just got my first bin going now (and added a second with no food to try to get some more bedding over the flies...). Mine is in the basement, maybe 65 degrees, and I'm thinking a couple months at least to turn over a tray of food. Alot depends on what it is, how fast it rots, and how small you cut it. I threw in some past their prime Brussels sprouts, thinking they would go fast, but so far they've been really slow, since they are pretty dense. I'm just hoping tray 1 has some stuff ready for Mother's day when I can start planting outside.

I wouldnt think it would be much different whether its inside or outside providing you have nice weather. One month to harvest or even less time would be doable. Lets say you add a third tray with new bedding . One month later you harvest the bottom tray, in the meantime the middle tray already being worked for a full month will go another month most likely since you need time for your feeding tray to become mor mature. So by the time the middle becomes the harvest tray thats two months . I say this assuming you started with a good amount of worms and by now my have several thousand strong and are feeding them often enough to keep that good rotation. Im thinking that might be one of the mistakes of newer wormers is feeding at the same pace when your herd has increased multiple times and can handle and needs even more food. As long as your herd is healthy eating the food and your bins are not developing smells other than maybe right after feeding certain foods like melons or broccoli you are doing fine. Ok Im thru babbling.