Wooden Flow-Through Bin-10-10-12

It’s been ages since I’ve posted an update for my small indoor wooden flow-through bin (you can find previous posts below). From the look of things, everything seems to be going really well in spite of some neglect on my part. Every time I open up the lid I find congregations of Red Worms up at or near the surface readily feeding on whatever happens to be the most recent waste addition. I haven’t been adding loads of food, but everything that does get added seems to get processed quite quickly!

Given how long the system has been up and running, I should probably start thinking about attempting to harvest some vermicompost. Unfortunately, it looks like Edward (owner of Wood Worm Farms, who provided this bin) was right about the false bottom drying out and being difficult to remove with the scraper bar. I will almost certainly need to dismantle the entire bin in order to remove the material – but that’s ok. Should be fun to see what’s going on down below anyway! Next time around I’ll likely limit myself to one or two sheets of newsprint at the bottom, and will make more of an effort to keep everything moist.

All in all, I am pleased with this bin. It’s nice and compact, yet seems to offer some decent waste processing “power” (excellent aeration likely helps with this). Unlike the other small wooden bin I’ve tested (a stacking bin with shallow trays, also from Wood Worm Farms), this system seems to hold moisture reasonably well (even with my neglect). The fact that the false bottom dried out is simply an indication that A) I didn’t take Edwards advice (lol) and/or B) I haven’t been tending to the bin enough.

If there was one bit of constructive criticism I might offer it would relate to the fact that you can’t secure the two stacking levels together all that well. There are small pieces of wood on the sides to help keep the upper section in place, but it doesn’t take much of a bump to knock this off-kilter, resulting in material (and potentially worms) falling out. This has only happened once or twice and hasn’t been a big deal – just thought it was worth mentioning (definitely something to keep in mind for all those of you who have young kids and/or rambunctious dogs etc).

Anyway – I’ll definitely post another update once I take the system apart (and harvest the vermicompost).
8)

Previous Posts in Series
My New Wooden Flow-Through Bin
Wooden Flow-Through Bin-06-14-12
Wooden Flow-Through Bin-07-09-12

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Comments

    • wiredds
    • October 10, 2012

    Bentley,
    when you say you put one or two sheets of newsprint for the false floor, do you mean literally two sheets or two “section” worth of sheets. I laid down three sections of newsprint for the VB24, probably around 12-15 sheets.
    thuan

    • Bentley
    • October 10, 2012

    Hi Thuan – I’m glad you asked that. It’s very important to point out that this (small) bin and any VermBin Series bin are a completely different kettle of fish – other than the fact that they are both flow-throughs. All VBs should have a very thick false bottom, as described in the manual – otherwise you can run into issues with roaming worms and/or materials falling down. With this little wooden bin having one or two sheets (not sections) should be ok since it has a screen floor, so even if it DOES break down fairly quickly, I shouldn’t end up with any issues (other than perhaps the odd adventurous worm roaming out).

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