I have cucumbers coming up in my flower bed, and a tomato I put in the bin sprouted like crazy. It's certainly something to consider. I'm leaving the cucumber for now. It's neat to see it growing!

Mariann

Right now I have dozens of tomato, cucumber,and some unknown sprouts everywhere I have put vermicompost. This is fine with me. Some of my best vegetables plants have volunteered in the past few summers from the compost. I even have a great peach tree.
If you don't like the sprouts, just leave them in your bins and they too will become compost.
I do a lot of vermicomposting with kids and we love to grow the sprouts!

It's just that I'm certain that I didn't put any seeded vegetable or fruits into the bin since my last harvest. Egg shells, coffee grounds, onion, potato and carrot peels... Winter food.

They also didn't sprout in the bin, but sprouted from the harvested poop. The unharvested stuff still in the bin doesn't have sprouts, but the harvested stuff in the sealed bucket is full. Like I said, no big deal, but its wierd.

Just consider it an experiment and come back to us with the answer as to what it is.

This is likely happening to everyone about now. All of my container plants have a mix of sprouts coming up now, including squash and pumpkin seeds and probably others (they don't stick around long enough to find).

Overall not a big deal but those of you with beds may be in for more work than a few containers.

Freezing and or cooking food before it goes into the bin is one way to cut down on the number of seeds that sprout.

Whenever i work with something that i know has a lot of seeds, like squash, i will usually throw all the seeds and parts i cut off into a pan, toss it into a 450 oven for about 30 mins, then into the food processor, and once cooled into the bin. Most other items get frozen before being added to the bin. The only volunteer plants i have had are cantaloupe (didnt freeze or cook it first), potato, and avocado.

In theory you could freeze the vermicompost once harvested for a week or so to cut down on the number of seeds that may sprout, however this may also harm the beneficial bacteria. Kelly would be able to provide a better answer here.

Bryan

I had a potato sprout in my bin, so I put it in my garden where it promptly died. Well the top did.. I accidently dug it up just today while I was planting hot peppers (what on earth am I going to do with 6 hot pepper plants?!) and there's now a baby potato growing off the side that's bigger than the original chunk.. it's kinda crazy :)

Jim

It turns out that I had a zillion tomato plants. Yes I had put tomato scraps in the bin last Fall, but I figured that they would try to sprout in the warm, damp and dark bin then die off. But they just hung around in the bin over the Winter and took off when they saw the light of day. Go figure. Thanks, all!

takes heat to kill tomato seeds, they're very good at waiting for the right conditions to sprout and grow, and daylight availability is one of those conditions, even in the dark bin they can tell!

Bill

I wanted to complement you on following up with the sprouts which became tomatoes. I'm a new vermicomposter, and was concerned about the sprouts you noted. However, being tomatoes, I can certainly accept that. I think I was actually fearing a new life form!

thanks again!