I'm not at the point of being shocked yet. My flowthrough is only a few weeks old, and does not have a large worm population yet. But I have been very satisfied, even concerned, about how quickly the contents are decomposing.

Concerned? Yes. How am I going to keep this thing fed when the worm population maxes out the bin? And at the rate the level of bedding is dropping, how long will it take to fill this thing? 5 days ago, I added food and bedding to bring the level up from 7 inches deep to 9 inches deep. It is already back down to 7 inches.

I agree that it is the airflow. I can keep my flowthrough very wet and still have excellent airflow.

I feel like advising newbies to definiately freeze their excess kitchen waste in ziplocks or even brown paper lunch bags or wapped in newspaper so when their worm population catch on and this happens to them they will be prepared. The change from WAY too much food to not enough food finally happens way to late but when it does look out.

~ Sitting watching my worms for hours... well I can't see the worms but watching the outside of the containers wondering what is happening inside. And I think I know.

I am starting a vermicomposter next month and am going to be using purchased bins. Any recommendations? I have a family of 5 and we eat mostly veggies and freshly prepared foods, very little store bought or commercial prepared items. So I have plenty of veggie scraps. The freezing idea is good too, just so I don't waste the scraps. I want to end up with 3 or 4 bins so I have enough compost and also to be able to sell worms to fishermen!

organicislandfarmer, sounds like a topic for a new thread.

The Worm Inn looks good. I would recommend EFs for breaking down your food scraps, but ENCs for selling as bait.

Start small. It is better to make a $30 mistake by killing a pound of worms than to make a $150 mistake by killing 5 pounds.

I freeze scraps to kill fruit fly eggs, and so I can feed at my own convenience rather that having to feed every day.

I have 3 COWS, 3 bins each, all in use. I'm satisfied with the cows but I'm thinking of adding a 4th stack. Is there any advantage of the square units over the round?

Dave Nelson

Congratulations on your new flow-thru successes. You now have a commitment to feed the herd regularly. Time to stockpile. I am still feeding my herd from my stockpile of manure, coffee grounds, and pumpkin that I gathered last fall. I would have run out long ago if I had a flow-thru system. I am strongly considering building a flow-thru outdoor worm cage.

Pete

Ok, I'm looking up pictures of flow through worm bins. Does it basically mean that they have holes on the sides versus just drainage hole and ones at the top of the bin?

A flow through bin is a bin that is designed to feed at the top, and remove castings (hopefully worm free) from the bottom.

They tend to be tall. 3 feet tall is typical, with a composting chamber 18 to 24 inches deep and a space below for castings to drop into that is about a foot deep. They usually have some sort of grate or grill that holds the castings in the composting chamber until the lower inch or so of the castings are disturbed in some way and they fall through the grate.

Examples:

Small scale: Worm Inn.
Medium scale: Worm Wigwam, OSCR.
Large Scale: Holcombe Reactor.

There is also a wide range of homemade designs.

Thank you very much. :)

When I read sbryce's posts they are always the same thing I would of posted but way better. :-) So I agree.

"some sort of grate or grill that holds the castings in the composting chamber until the lower inch or so of the castings are disturbed in some way and they fall through the grate." It would be great if the finished vermicastings would just fall through the grate on their own. That is my goal, I may never reach.

"There is also a wide range of homemade designs." This is where the most interisting experimentation and growth in vermicomposting is happening now, in my opinion.

I fed my flowthrough heavily a week ago. I promised myself I would leave the bin undisturbed for a week and let the worms do their thing. It was hard to do, but I managed. I did water, and I did toss in a few more worms, mostly worms and cocoons that I found in some harvested VC. But I did not disturb the bedding.

I finally poked around today so I could decide how much to feed them. All I can say is, WOW! Audrey Jr. is right!

There is still room for the worm population to increase a lot, but this bin is already processing food maybe 3 times faster than my Rubbermaid tote bins. I started with 6 inches of shredded cardboard bedding. I was wondering if the bottom of the bedding would be eaten if I was only feeding on the top. (I have buried some food deeper, but not much.) The entire 6 inches of bedding appears to have broken down already. This only took about a month, and with too few worms. I would normally expect it to take 3 months to see this kind of results.

In my Rubbermaid bins, the worms like to hang around near the walls of the bin near the top of the bedding. My flowthrough has worms throughout the bedding. They don't seem to have a preference for the edges or the top of the bin.

So far I am very happy with the results. It was a little frustrating getting things going, but now it is amazing how well things are running.

mendopete: Sometimes I visit the vermi 8 times a day. Sometimes those visits consist of just sitting and looking at the bin. I'm not quite sure why, maybe I think if I sit there long enough a glowing light will explain all the vermi secrets to me. In the meantime I enjoy sitting and trying to puzzle them out for myself errors and all. I am not worried about the vermi starving since reading somewhere about a vermicomposter who died. 8 years later his widow let people into the cellar. He still had worms alive. Maybe sensing his impending doom he overfed. If you have seen the recent video Bently has on overfed bins... mine seem more overfed. Wrapping each contribution in paper saves from fruit flys. I did have a shortage of food in maybe February. Pumpkin, Thanksgiving, Christmas feasts gone. I was hurting to feed. Maybe more for me than for the worms. I do have an extensive collection of bedding stored at the ready. At one time I was even short on that. My favorite is like the insides of corrigated cardboard on steroids. Half inch or one inch waves. The worms love the curves. Cardboard drink coasters from restaurants store nicely along with coffee trays. I also have some craft store brown crinkly like easter grass. I am saving the pretty stuff in case I ever do a vermicomposting demonstration. The ugly bedding I feed to the worms right away.

Pumpkin at the end of April? I am jealous. It is a long time from pumpkin until mellon season. I do agree feed the damaged items first and save the rest until they volunteer due to starting to rot.

I am trying to look in on my worms less and down to 3-4 times a day at least. I try not to do much digging though. Mainly trying to get the moisture level right and trying to figure out when I can feed them again. I have a cup of UCG, strawberry tops and green beans waiting for them. I can't wait until they're established and eating more.