In the short term, it won’t smell if you put it in a zipper bag or sealed container in the fridge.

I hope you can convice your fiance to support you. After all what you are doing is good and responsible recycling. returning to the earth organic matter that has come from the earth. Lets take a look at the alternative. Food waste left to rot in a bin at your place for about a week, perhaps wrapped in plastic, then collected and taken to the tip where it becomes mixed with other non organic waste to create a cocktail of posion leaching down to the water table. Now thats PUTRID.

I have a small scrap container which sits on the bottom shelf of my fridge. I guess if you cant bare to look at the scaps then get a colored container. It has a lid on it, and is emptied to the worms about twice a week, no smells involved. If you have the right quantiy of worms they will process this in 48hrs. I just cant see the argument?

anyway i hope you stay with it.

Roby

I’m a vegetarian and cook probably more than the average single guy so end up producing quite a bit of veggie waste. I then keep usually two different bags of scraps in old plastic grocery bags that I use over and over. One is full of “stock friendly” scraps like mushroom stems, squash peels, corn cobs, really anything with a mellow flavor that I can use to make veggie stock. Then the second bag is for stuff that doesn’t seem like it would make good stock like asparagus stems (bitter), onion peels, etc…

Both bags live in the freezer until they get fullish. I take the frozen stock scraps and put them in a pot and cover them with water and simmer them for an hour with a little salt and some whole peppercorns or whatever strikes my fancy. Then I strain out the very nice veggie stock through some cheesecloth and let the scraps cool a bit, then add them to one of my bins (along with the cheesecloth). It tends to be a good bit of waste so if you’re not careful you will get bugs. Bit if you make sure to cover the scraps with either finished worm poo or dry soil it should help with that.

The non scrap bag just lives in the freezer until I’m feeling motivated and I just dump them frozen into my bin. I usually try to do it during a warmish day so the scraps thaw faster. Again covering with soil or worm poo will help with bugs.

This is what I do to get the most out of everything I use. Since the scrap bags live in the freezer they never really get gross. I’ve had the under-the-sink slop buckets before and while I’m not squeamish they get really nasty and are not fun to deal with.

-Chris

Thanks for mentioning that bit about pouring off the liquid. I am a newbie, and I have just started with freeze/thawing my scraps. This seems to be working so far, but I was a little surprised by all the liquid that came off my first batch, which included cucumber and broccoli. I poured off what I could, but I was surprised by how much water was still in there, so I also added some dry cardboard scraps to try and soak it up. Also, as BC has pointed out, the broccoli made my bin a little stinky for a couple of days (like broccoli, not like an anaerobic mess). Additional dry bedding helped a lot.

My husband is pretty relaxed about my whole worm bin in the house thing (even with the fungus gnat infestation) — I’m the one who can’t stand having smelly kitchen scraps. Here’s the method I’ve developed to support my worm bin habit without the stink (and it cuts down on bugs).

We have two kitchen scrap receptacles by the sink: one is a small metal compost bucket with a filter that we use to collect the kitchen waste that can’t go in the worm bin (citrus, starches, etc) — these go to the backyard compost pile once a week, and so don’t have time to get stinky. The second receptacle is a metal canister with a clear lid that latches closed — this holds the scraps headed for the worms.

Once the worms’ scraps accumulate a bit, but are NOT yet rotting, I put them into a plastic snap-lock container and stick them in the freezer. I usually have one or two of these containers in the freezer at all times — each holds about 3 cups of scraps. When needed, I thaw a container on the counter overnight, pour off the liquid, and add the thawed scraps to the worm bin. This has eliminated that putrid smell that used to come from the scraps when I would just let them rot a bit before feeding — and freezing the scraps helps break them down for the worms. Bonus: freezing the scraps kills any insect eggs or larvae that might be hiding out.

Big tip: label the containers you dedicate for worm bin scraps. Saves on confusion in a crowded freezer.

If you are interested, here is a link to the one I have:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OV55XM/ref=oss_product