Composter’s Log: Stardate 60429.3 - Unusual Life Forms
Interesting Slime Mold Growing in Bin
It’s been a little while since I last provided updates on my ‘winter composting extravaganza’ so I figured today was as good a day as any!
Truth be told, I haven’t even been out to the bin in a number of days so I really wasn’t sure what to expect. One major development since my last post has been a major retreat by Old Man Winter - a mild spell for the last week or so has resulted in all the snow melting away.
What’s interesting is that temperatures in the bin were somewhat cooler than expected the last time I took measurements (last week) - many zones having dropped to the 10-15 C (50-59F) range. I guess that’s the trade-off when you use heaps of snow as insulation around an outdoor bin.
Temperatures seem to have increased once again - many readings from today were in the 20-30 C range (68-86F), with some zones even hotter than that. This probably explains why I found quite a few worms in the upper layer of leaves, even though conditions were fairly dry in this region.
Another potential indicator of high temperatures was the congregation of thousands of springtails along the underside of the lid and in the upper layer on leaves. For those of you unfamiliar with springtails, they are a tiny fungus-eating invertebrates often found in areas rich in organic matter, such as forest leaf litter. They tend to be very common in composting bins (both indoors and outdoors) and certainly shouldn’t cause concern (I even have a small ‘pet’ population of these critters in the rich soil of one of my tropical houseplants).
Another interesting organism which seems to be doing very well in the bin these days is some form of slime mold (I think). It’s presence seems to be linked to the rise in bin temperatures since I only started noticing it when things went thermophilic on me a little while ago. It seems to be doing very well once again - as you can see in the picture above, it has spread onto the old door mat that’s been sitting at the top of the bin.
I decided to add some water today so as to cool things off and provide a little more moisture for the worms in the upper layer of leaves. I am however trying to avoid this practice as much as possible since we have very thick clay soils and I suspect my hole in the ground (below the bin) will become a lake of compost tea by spring if I’m not careful.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Hopefully before too long winter will test my skills a little more than it has been.
Previous posts in this series:
Composter’s Log: Stardate 60393.6 - Winter Has Arrived
Composter’s Log: Stardate 60376.9 - RED ALERT!!
Composter’s Log - Stardate 60352.8
Winter Composting Extravaganza
Technorati Tags: compost, composting, vermicompost, vermicomposting, worms, winter, springtails, slime mold
Note: The Winter Composting Extravaganza has moved to a new home. To catch all the latest winter composting action be sure to check out the Compost Guy Winter Composting Page.
Written by Bentley on December 18th, 2006 with
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