Comments on: When Is Rotten Food TOO Rotten?

By: Phil de Canillas

Phil de Canillas — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 15:02:40 +0000

Add lots of shredded brown cardboard, preferably not printed on.
Leave it dry and mix with your compost, check it after a couple of hours and if it is still too wet, add more dry, shredded cardboard.
Perhaps add a compost accelerator and turn the compost every other day until the compost is drier with less smell.

By: cathy

cathy — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:47:57 +0000

Hey, i bought the big double side by side plastic black composting bins from costco and put all veggie waste and remnants from my juicer in it. It has gone really sour and sticks is soaking wet and black. can i just add some dirt to save it? please help!

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:45:40 +0000

I have a problem! Friends of mine were encouraged by me taking about my solar cone and started piling all their food scraps/waste into a giant gabage can. It’s almost full and starting to rot. With spring coming they are concerned. I’m trying to help them fingure out a solution. Any suggestions?

By: Bentley

Bentley — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:20:54 +0000

Hi Raymond,
Thanks for the kind words. Generally, my recommendation when people are going away is not to worry about it too much. Believe it or not, adding a lot of food right before you go away may be a recipe for disaster.
I would likely add SOME food – but would focus on materials that take awhile to break down like broccoli and carrots (should cook them a bit) and add them basically whole. Most of my focus however would be on bedding types of materials – if you happen to have fall leaves where you are, adding some of these might not be a bad idea. Shredded corrugated cardboard is also a very safe material – the worms will munch on it, but you can be sure that it won’t cause any issues.

In all honesty, I’ve left bins alone for more than 3 weeks when I HAVE been in town (haha), and they always seem to be thriving when I open them up (full open systems are another matter since they dry up fairly easily) so believe me when I say it’s much easier to kill worms via overfeeding than via starvation!
8)

By: Raymond e st. pierre

Raymond e st. pierre — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 19:07:19 +0000

love this web site.have it as a favorite. we will be going to europe on vacation.for 3 weeks .is it ok to leave my european nightcrawlers alone that long.I will feed them very good before we leave.that very day in fact.they are indoors in a wooden bin I built.temp and ph will be fine raising them for fishing.but growing so fond of them I will hate to kill them.may sound odd .but this is the way I feel.have you ever heard any one say that lol lol with regards Raymond e st. pierre

By: Carol

Carol — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:57:39 +0000

I received a Worm Factory 5 bin for Xmas. Started my worms mid-January. I keep the bins in my garage. Due the first quarter of the year, it was pretty cold (45-50) in the garage. The bin seemed to stay pretty wet. I had the same problem as others with worms migrating into the liquid collection pan. Every time I check the bin, I was picking live worms out of the collection pan and putting them back “upstairs”. At one point I was quite discouraged with my worm attrition rate, but just resolved to get it right.

My solution has been to 1) shred up lots of paper (old mail, etc no plastic windows) then 2) spread a piece of plastic on the garage floor; 3) dump the working bin out onto the plastic and mix in the shredded paper. 4) I line the working bin with a couple of new sheets of dry newspaper and scoop the new mixture back into the bin. Any clumps of the newspaper sheets from the dumped bin I bury in the center of the working bin. It has taken until now 6/19 to completely fill one bin. The last time I remixed the bin I started a second bin on top but only put shredded paper in it, no newspaper layers between. I tossed some food in and the worms are migrating back and forth between the two bins. I did notice this evening that it is getting moist and dense, so will be doing another remix tomorrow. Drained the liquid from the collection tray tonight, but may have clogged it with some dead worms. Some still migrate down there, but I think they are actually trying to get away from the moisture in the working tray and end getting stuck in the collection tray. I love the idea of a ladder (LOL), but not sure how to get them to use it.

I don’t generally worry about placement of the food too much. I’ve put some pretty snarky stuff in there. I do try to drain any liquids off before dumping the food in. I also put stale cereal and cookies in there. I let my egg shells dry and then crush them before sprinkling on the top of the working tray. Generally I just put the food in a different corner of the top bin each time that I add some. When I do the above bin maintenance, then anything not eaten will get mixed with the rest and compost. Now that the weather is getting warmer, I am having a little bit of a problem with fruit flies, so will start burying the food.

I still have some dead bodies (I’m suspecting suicide), but the population now seems to be growing and looks much healthier. So everybody keep your chin up and just figure out what works for you!!

By: Pam J.

Pam J. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:37:35 +0000

Layers, schmayers. The worms don’t care. They’ll wiggle around to get their food and rearrange the layers. Keeping the bin dark and moist is much more important than worrying about layers. That’s my 2 cents!

By: Cathy

Cathy — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:18:56 +0000

I am just starting out with a worm bin (I bought a worm factory 3-level bin). There are really great instructions on the first set-up and it talks about when to add another bin (when the stuff in the first bin reaches up to where a second bin would be), but I don’t understand how to do the layers. I added the dirt/compost, the worms (from a friend with a bin, so it came with a lot of castings, too), food, shredded paper, and then a few sheets of newspaper (moist) on top. I am not sure how to layer. I’ve only lifted all of the top up and put food where the other food was already. Am I supposed to do that, or am I supposed to add a new layer of shredded paper before each food addition? If I do that it seems like there won’t be enough food in the layers. The layering part isn’t clear in the instructions. How should I do this to keep the bin healthy? Thanks in advance!

By: Pam J.

Pam J. — Sun, 10 May 2009 19:33:09 +0000

I agree with Lorna and Pamela: it’s really, really hard to fail at VCing. The hardest lesson for me has been learning to be patient and to leave them alone. And on the question of “what’s too rotten” I think it’s hard to be “too rotten.” Worms don’t have teeth and it’s my understanding that rather than eating the apple they’re eating the microbes ON the apple. In other words, they’re eating the rotten part.

By: Conrad

Conrad — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:01:35 +0000

Can you give us a hint as to what you would need to do to get old scraps ready for worms?
I have a bucket that has been sitting in the garage for a while, I was about to give it to my worms, but since I read this, I thought otherwise. I might just save it for the regular compost bin I am going to start once we move.