How much of my living soil will die over winter?

Whats up guys i have a raised bed on wheels on my deck in the backyard its aprx 3x6 feet and has 2x12s for walls and a big handle for pushing it around that also doubles as a right angle roof peak. Hope this all makes sense as ive yet to photograph this. The bed has 4" slots that run the width of the box in the floor and are screened with gutter guard, these are for drainage, i started this this summer reusing all of my leftover pots of soil and incorporated a few 15 gal portions of different soils from various locations/ecosytems including ponds, swamps, sand bars, clay deposits, and various top soils. Ammended with bio char and bokashi aswell as my own compost, local worms and predator mites, ive had sunflowers green onion potatoes clover and various grass and straw growing all year, i built a greenhouse frame on a 90 degree right angle and poly wrapped it , it has adequate ventilation and still produces a g3nerous amount of heat in the sun but have not measured it. Most have died other than thw grasses and clover and onions and have pulled qlot of the vegetaion for my heated compost.

what im wondering is now that winter is here i have no room for this in my garage and want my microbes and bugs to keep alive. How detremental is winter to my "super" living soil.

I plan on using this raised bed for a 100 odd seed run on some genetics i bred next spring.

Thanks in advance

Leaving soil open to the snow can cause some compaction and kill off microbes in the top layer of soil, many just stay dormant during the winter. A cover crop of something like a winter rye can be very beneficial, but its much easier to just cover the beds with a tarp, preferably dark then the sun will warm it up some but more importantly protect it from the extreme snow and frost, it will also help smother weeds come spring time.

Insulate and cover them. I used shredded leaves and a tarp on my worm bin. The leaves gave them a dry area on top... Wait, you have heated compost?

I think that most of the microbes would go dormant instead of dying, I'm often wrong though...

MustangStudFarm said:

Insulate and cover them. I used shredded leaves and a tarp on my worm bin. The leaves gave them a dry area on top... Wait, you have heated compost?

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Ya well my garage is heated and i have a small tote in there to keep all of my nearly ready to use stuff with worms to help finish of any reminants of waste. Is this wrong?

mulch really well, straw or leaves should work well. then cover the whole thing including sides with black plastic. now stack straw bails all the way around the outside. people do that to help keep there mobile homes warmer around here. i also do that for the blueberries and grapes i have in pots and it doesnt kill them.

but worst case re-apply the microbes in the spring. wouldnt hurt anyway.

grilledcheese101 said:

Ya well my garage is heated and i have a small tote in there to keep all of my nearly ready to use stuff with worms to help finish of any reminants of waste. Is this wrong?

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I've got a huge worm bin, but I am thinking about setting up my old Worm Factory 360 in the garage. Probably in my veg room... My worm bin froze last year and it didn't make any progress...

MustangStudFarm said:

I've got a huge worm bin, but I am thinking about setting up my old Worm Factory 360 in the garage. Probably in my veg room... My worm bin froze last year and it didn't make any progress...

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I guess mine would be considered more of a worm bin then too lol. Well it stays stable around 10 in the garage i figure that should be plenty warm enough for the little critters

grilledcheese101 said:

I guess mine would be considered more of a worm bin then too lol. Well it stays stable around 10 in the garage i figure that should be plenty warm enough for the little critters

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I'm making some homemade bokashi/grokashi and I'm going to try the 'kashi bran in the worm bin to speed things up. I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how well it will work but Bokashi is more than just for a "Bokashi Bucket", it's a compost accelerator. Some people use it for a topdressing with EWC and Barley. I'll know in a couple of weeks if it is worth it or not...

MustangStudFarm said:

I'm making some homemade bokashi/grokashi and I'm going to try the 'kashi bran in the worm bin to speed things up. I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how well it will work but Bokashi is more than just for a "Bokashi Bucket", it's a compost accelerator. Some people use it for a topdressing with EWC and Barley. I'll know in a couple of weeks if it is worth it or not...

Click to expand...

Im running a store bought version of it and i like it, they have 2 versions one with a npk value $30, and one without $10. Both provide microbes and fungi, i really like the $10 bag and for the price it goes pretty far, the other stuff is pretty agressive, have found i really have to watch how much i ammend in there. But it definitely works well in compost