Recently I traveled with my family to Florida for our annual in-law/Disney World vacation. I fed my growing herd of worms 100 pumpkins before I left and didn't give it another thought. A few days into our trip, however, I saw some pictures a friend had posted on Facebook of the amazing SNOW our area had received. This may not be a big deal for many of you reading this blog, but snow along the California coast is rare, indeed, not to mention potentially devastating for my unprepared worm business.
That afternoon I wrote to my landlord and asked her to dig around in one of my bins to make sure there were still signs of life. She did so and got back to me to tell me that, while the worms seemed alive, they were sure moving at a very slow rate. This sufficed to calm me for that first day, but I must admit that I was a bit panicky for the rest of the trip. By the time we returned home at 2am several days later it was all I could do to go to bed instead of racing to the warehouse to save whomever I could.
The next morning I arrived in the 40 degree temperatures with a heating coil and my own heating blanket to place underneath my bins in hopes of saving, but not cooking, any surviving worms. The thermometer read 40 degrees in the bedding, far below the optimal range of 55-77 degrees that red worms prefer. However, when I started to dig around in there I noticed something unexpected: the worms were FINE. Happy, in fact. Many of the worms had congregated around the pumpkins where there would have been extra heat as they decomposed. But I was surprised to find thousands of baby worms, the most vulnerable to the temperature drop, active and wriggling throughout the bedding, not just by the warm pumpkins.
The lesson? I think the lesson I learned is that worms seem to prefer to be left alone. And even in extreme temperatures they can thrive. Now, I wouldn't want to test this theory much further, and it still remains my wish that the bins warm up again. However, I feel pretty good about leaving my buddies on their own over the Christmas holidays.
Just wanted to share my experience with everyone.
Good worming!
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