Modified Worm Herding Question

Tonight I discovered some live worms in my plastic storage container of this past Fall's 2010 finished compost. The container was in my very cold unheated garage. It has a tightly snapped lid and no air holes. Tonight it is inside my house in the laundry room. I'd like to preserve the worms but not go fully gun ho into worm herding. For now I've added some wet newspaper to it. If the worms were living contently without any help from me until now, then my hope is to do a minimum of upkeep till they can be transferred to the garden in warmer weather. Long story (sorry) but the question finally is - at this point just add more newspaper, little water, add kitchen scraps, and watch how fast things are eaten I think. Right? Yes? No?

That's it...its just that simple.....don't get them to wet or you'll drown them.

Gina & Josh,
Last Fall's dig for a 10'x12'x3' underground recharge bed (to mitigate flooding) resulted in a huge mound of earth atop the new bed. It'll be leveled at 3-4 ft above ground and spread over a larger area which should support "Spring garden expansion". I saw worms in it last week!
Couldn't a partially buried perforated container (5 gal bucket - like your worm tube; or a large plastic tub) help grow the massive herd of wrigglers needed to do their magic on that mound of earth?

Hi W.P.

I'm the experimenter, Josh is the expert. I'll share what little I know - since it gets really cold up there in Chicago your outdoor worms could go below the frost level of about 3 feet. Here is info I copied from a "Ask the Scientist" site:

"The depth of freezing during the winter is a function of how cold the air temperature gets, how long the air temperature stays below freezing, how clear the sky is (clear skies allow the ground to cool more rapidly as energy is lost from the ground radiatively), and whether there is snow cover (and how deep it is). Long cold spells with no snow cover can cause the ground to freeze to a greater depth.
During a normal winter in northern Illinois, the ground will freeze to a depth of about a foot. If there is persistent snow cover, the ground may freeze only a few inches deep. If there is little or no snow cover, the ground can freeze nearly three feet deep."

According to whoever that scientist was, I would feel comfortable with feeding them at 3 ft. below the surface and feel Iwas taking a chance at 1 foot below, during the winter.

Love to hear about your results, keep us posted!