morgan_3, I like your style.

So morgan I was lurking and reading a bunch of your old threads on the forum you used to haunt. You get some nasty winters right - like at warmest you're zone 4 right?

If so, how do your outdoor bins hold up? Do they bonce back from cocoons alone or are adult worms able to overwinter a frost line 4 feet deep.

I ask as I am in zone 4b, winter lows between 20 and 25 below each year, and am thinking about an outdoor bin. I have a one cubic yard traditional compost bin but seem to fail at getting that to work as well as I think it should.

Thanks
Yan

Thanks Otis, I have enjoyed reading various comments here as well and frankly I have a lot more browsing to do. I have noticed quite a few posting by yourself as well as Yan here. I'm sure we have a great deal of information to share. I'm looking forward to our discussions.

Yan, although Helena proper is listed a zone 4, I am in the center of the valley, whereas the city of Helena sits on the side of Mt. Helena on the south-west side of the valley. My weather patterns are a lot different even though I am only five minutes or five miles from town. Winds here can be three times higher than in town, and the moisture levels are considerably lower. Our frost lines do get down to about two feet but that is where my garden stops and the bed rock begins.

My six raised beds are dug down into the bed rock or approximately four feet. The deepest raised bed is dug down five feet and contains well aged cow manure/straw. This bed has a combination of red wigglers, Euros, and Canadian night crawlers added to it. The red wigglers have pretty much taken over the bin, however I do see evidence of the other two worms from time to time.

In the fall I dig a sizeable hole in the center of this raise bed and fill it with garden scraps. In the winter I cover the surface with black plastic and place three window panes over this bed and let it sit until spring. Worms will migrate to the lower levels, but by spring they will have pretty much devoured all of the garden scraps. I use the composted cow manure for potting mixes and filling large garden holes with a 50"50 mix of compost and top soil for tomatoes, squash, pumpkin and cucumbers. I also add a cottage cheese container teaming with red wigglers to these holes as well.

I have an unlimited supply of well aged cow manure. and horse manure in various stages of decomposition. I add horse manure with straw bedding to an above ground out door compost bin which sets under my deck. Like my raised beds it is 4'W x 8'L, and 3.5'D. By sitting under my deck and next to the concrete wall of the house, I get some protection from the cold. I cover this bin with a wooden 1" x 4" frame which has 14ml opaque plastic sheeting (painters drop cloth) stapled to the frame and a tarp thrown over that.

This compost bin under the deck also gets a healthy dose of garden and harvest scraps before winter. The only difference in the two outdoor bins is the under deck bin gets dosed with hot water periodically from an outdoor faucet I installed a year ago. Some of the horse manure in this bin is fairly fresh so adding hot water helps to boost the decomposition process in the winter months. By spring a few turnings is all that is required to complete the pulverizing process of the 'horse biscuits'.

This may seem like a lot of compost but I never have enough. The main garden 60' x 100', four 4' x 60' rows, six 4' x 8' raised bed, fruit trees, etc., use a lot of compost. I also bring in three pickup loads of the well aged cow manure to till in each spring.

I would like to figure out how to post pics here to help explain some of the things which I have been posting. Will do that as a follow up as soon as I can determine how its done.

As a side note Yan, I wore out a shovel and pic ax establishing my garden, bins and planting fruit trees, and I have a rock wall 200ft long, 10ft wide and 6ft deep extending my back yard into a 40ft barrow ditch along my back year. This wall has been a dumping site for corn stalks: potato, bean, pea, squash and cucumber vines; and layered with horse manure as well. I have added another riser to my 20 riser irrigation system to plant this area next spring. It already has dill growing in one corner, and I figured I would decorate this area with an assortment of colorful gourds and maybe some small pumpkins this spring.

Each year I now have people stopping who want some of my corn stalks for Halloween decorations. Figured they could help themselves to some gourds as well.

morgan

What I wouldn't give to have an unlimited supply of manure! I am so jealous

shitzandwiggles...what a fantastic name.

Before moving to Montana I lived in a town of 80 square miles with about ten times the population of the eighty square mile valley here just out side of the city of Helena. Horses and cattle out numbered the population by a factor of about ten...maybe more. I live square in the middle of the valley, so you can see I am surrounded by lots of manure! Free for the taking!!! Horse manure is four doors away and cow about a five minute drive. The cow manure mound has manure from a number of years back which makes it composted to the point where crops can be grown directly in it. And the farmer loads my pickup truck for me. It's like a gold mine for a gardener. Add some crushed rock fines from the local gravel mines; some wood chips and wood chip fines from the mill down the road a bit; and a well with a twenty riser underground feed system for irrigation; and a 2/3's acre lot which is more than half garden space...and Utopia!

I don't mean to brag shitzandwiggles, it's hard work for someone my age, but it keeps me going. The biggest challenge is Mother N, who only allows me a sixty day window to accomplish what I must do. Sometimes I get a few extra days, but no guarantees.

This is still work in progress, but after ten years I feel like I have accomplished something which I can be proud of. I'm sure you didn't respond to this thread to hear my life story, but I have these uncontrollable urges to write about something.

Great thread. Thank you for sharing Morgan, and keep 'em coming.