Tell us about your bin setup and what the odor smells like. My bins don't stink unless there's too little air and/or too much food. I haven't used zeolite.

Good luck,
Mariann

Well, I have a 14 gallon plastic rubbermaid bin that I drilled a bunch of 1/8 inch holes all around the top and all around the bottom, about and inch and a half apart, and also on the lid (all over). I live in a pretty arid climate, so it may be too much air, but I thought I'd err on the side of too much aeration than the other way around. I built a false bottom inside the bin, out of shade cloth hung on dowels (trying to be frugal and resourceful with what I could find) poked through some larger holes. so water and air can pass through the base. I have a layer of shredded newspaper (shredded in our paper shredder) that is wet, but not soggy, fluffed up, then I put the layer of worms on top along with the soil/compost whatever that they were shipped in, then another layer of shredded/moistened newspaper on top of that. I buried a handful of strawberry hulls Saturday night in one corner, and then last night I buried peels from one carrot and about 4 oz. of past due broccoli in another pocket. Broccoli stinks no matter what, in my opinion, but this is a different smell than broccoli-stink, and it was smelling like this before I ever added any food. Any ideas? Perhaps it has too much air exchange or something? Sorry for the lengthy description.

Lengthy discriptions are good! It HAS to be the stuff that the worms were shipped in.

Just my opinion, but you obviously don't have anything anaerobic going on. You haven't had enough time for anything you put in there to decompose much. So by process of elimination, it must be the bedding that they were shipped in...

I only smell a "sweet earth" smell when I pop the lid off of my bin, and its very similar to yours. I am sure that the smell will pass.

An answer from another newbie, so your milage may vary. :)

Agreed you should have a pleasant, earthy smell to your worm bin. When you stir up the contents, does the smell get worse? If so I am wondering if you added too much food too quickly. Also, right now you just have newspaper and food and worms, right? I remember starting out with a thick layer of compost on the false bottom of my bin, then adding the worms, then some food, then the layer of wet newspaper to hold down the odor and cover up the active layer. Let us know what you find out, but worm bins should not smell at all until you lift off the lid, and then it should smell like garden earth after a rain.

hhhmmmm. It is a little perplexing. To me, it doesn't smell like garden earth after a rain. It really smells like poo (please excuse the language). And it's not just when I open the bin, it's like that all of the time and kind of permeates the entire room. It's worse if I close the door to the room--when I open the door to the room a wave of smelliness almost knocks me over--so I'm just leaving the door open for now. Maybe if I don't do anything at all for a week or two it would help, but my curiosity about how the worms are doing gets the best of me and I have to peek inside. I went ahead and bought some zeolite, and have sprinkled a bit on top of the newspaper, but it hasn't helped. But I'm wondering if I pull back the layer of newspaper and sprinkle it right on the layer of compost that the worms came in that it might work better. The packaging says it's totally non-toxic to humans and pets, so I hope it's true for worms, too!

Thanks for all your feedback, I really appreciate the support and interest!

P.S. If anyone is reading this far, can anyone tell me if I can put too many crushed eggshells in my worm bin? We go through quite a few eggs in a week.

Papercrane, Megan says that her bin smelled bad before she added any food. It smelled with just newspaper and worms. It just has to be the medium the worms shipped in. (maybe ripe manure, dunno)

Meg you do have a layer of newspaper over the bedding they were shipped in and the food stuffs you added right?

Another option is that that room is too hot and the worms have actually died. That is one of the worst smells ive come across when working with a worm bin. It my be worth your while to sort through the bin and see if you only have a few survivors.

As far as egg shells go ... my wife eats between 1-2 dozen eggs a week. I nuke the shells, toss them in a herb grinder, and then put them in a bin. Basically all they are is calcium. Unless you do alot of the grinding process they tend to stay in larger pieces for a long time (although this is not necessarily bad).

With the recent weather changes in my area of utah the overheat is a real possibility. I noticed alot of my smaller "experiment" bins were getting too warm and ended up combining them into a few larger ones to maintain better temps.

Bryan

Bryan, yeah, I do have a layer of newspaper over the bedding they were shipped in and food I added. Oh, wow, I didn't think about dead worms being the cause of the smell, I wonder if that is it! I do know there are live worms in there, cause I've seen 'em wriggling down out away from the light when I open the bin, but I haven't dug down deep enough to see if there are dead ones. should I sort through everything and remove any dead ones to get rid of the smell, or should I leave them and (I assume) they will eventually be broken down with everything else and the smell will go away? Perhaps that will take too long though. Yeah, it has really heated up the last few days here in utah valley, too, you're probably on to something. I'm going to check when I get home tonight.

Thanks for the info on the egg shells, too! I can now add them worry free. :) It makes me happy to know someone else around where I live is working with worms, too.

I just cleaned out my drip tray from my worm bin. Some worms got stuck down there and died. The smell is revolting. Perhaps you should dig out the dead and limp worms and check your moisture level because the smell seems to permeate in extra moist conditions. Good luck.