Comments on: Fixing a Sour Worm Bin

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 08:50:56 +0000

Depends how stinky it is and how many worms you have. Adding bedding will always help as will some living material like aged horse manure or leaf mould. Good luck!

By: Loretta

Loretta — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 16:08:10 +0000

I am also new to raising red worms for composting and have a sour bed from over feeding would you mix in more beding or put worms in a new beding. Thanks 2015 March 10th.

By: Paul Spengler

Paul Spengler — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:30:16 +0000

Kirsty is right and so is the K.I.S.S principle. After I intervened as described above I left nature alone and everything resolved. The same thing happened to me again and the culprit as far as I can determine is a too ambitious feeding of green materials from veggie kitchen scraps. I am learning the balance between green and brown and time. It’s all so cool I love it – and I have had the BEST organic raised garden beds EVER. Thank you!

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Sat, 16 Aug 2014 07:12:44 +0000

Hey Paul, thought I’d jump in and give you my two cents worth. I’m so sorry that your little squirmies seem to have gotten into trouble.
The likely problem was feeding more than the system can cope with. The leaves would also be likely to be less absorbent and may have contributed to the problem. Maybe a mixture of bedding might be better, not exclusively leaves.
As long as some of your worms have survived in the top layer you should be ok. Make sure they have heaps of bedding, some living material and a tiny bit of food. I would dispose of the sour tray in an outside compost bin. The worries will not benefit from trying to live in it or process it.
You may have lost some worms and cocoons but I’m sure your system will recover. Happy worm farming!

By: Paul Spengler

Paul Spengler — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 02:52:15 +0000

I noticed for the last two days the vermicompost tea smelled just a bit sour. Tonight the worm bin was bubbling out the sides of the lid and smelled quite sour. I opened the lid – the bubble subsided in – but I found what looked like all of the worms on the top layer of newspaper and NONE in the vermicompost. I had recently shifted towards shredded partially composted leaves as my brown material versus a successful history of shredded newspaper. I had added a little more kitchen veggie scraps as we are going to be away a week. After reading this post I added shredded newspaper to the top tray – mixed it in with my hands – removed the bottom sour smelling tray. What do you think happened? And what should I now do?