OR: If one is Whacko enough, pureed liquid food can be
aerated. Keeps for weeks. Doesn't stink. This notion may be temperature sensitive. May be there is enough carbon in the horse manure to do the buffering.

Is this issue frequently asked or often answered ?

Since EQ suggests I feed potworms to the platys, I will grow
a separate population of potworms. Clearly, I don't have enough to do.

Aerating aging food. That is far too much work.

Horse manure already has a perfect C:N ratio, so I would not use it to offset the N in kitchen scraps. You would need something more like shredded cardboard. At that point you would simply be pre-composting everything.

sbryce, Your post prompted me to run down cellar and put big handfuls of beautiful, finely shredded mix of various cardboard on top of my worm inn. The pumpkin, Buddha's hand, and teabags seemed to be giving off some heat. Quick run up stairs, breath, breath, breath, and quick run back down showed 90ð's in a 60ð cellar. This is in an area of a gallon size so I do not think it will cause a problem. P.S. Don't tell anyone I used the turkey thermometer. But it should be OK. I wiped it off a bit under my arm pit.

I bet Bentley agrees with you on most everything.

Whether the Horse Manure will offset the nitrogen of kitchen scraps depends
on how much carbon is in the HM.
All that I have obtained had a high ratio of
sawdust, straw or wood shavings.
Do you disagree with that ?

Fresh apples or bedding is the difference there Barbara. Any manure mixed with straw, chips or whatever carbon source used to control smell and mess is likely to have a higher C:N than fresh. I say Likely because along with #2 these also soak up #1 which is high in N and I honestly do not know what the change is in heavily soaked high C material.

I have to agree with the aerating being too much trouble, on a much larger scale it would possibly be worth it but for a bucket of scraps it doesnt seem like enough gain for effort.

I am in a way pre aging my scraps. We keep a folgers can on the counter for everything and I dump it into the 5 gallon buckets situated on the worm bed. Each time I dump it the scraps add a couple of inches to the level, I also tear up and crumple wet cardboard which adds another couple of inches on top of that. We generate more scraps then the current Verd can eat so the food supply is building up and aging or composting.

The worms move up into these buckets on their own accord through 3/4" holes drilled in the bottom. Every bucket I have dug into has a nice population ranging from small to large worms. Not any kind of overwhelming numbers but then nights have been freezing here for some time, lightly but freezing none the less so they are surely slowed in their activity.

Up to 6 buckets in the patch now and think 6 more will be added as needed. Have been able to go back to some of the previously filled buckets and add another layer or two as they settle. Dont know how well this will work in hot weather but since they are deeply mulched in straw and shade can be provided my guess is that the only difference will be a drastic increase in population growth and activity, well thats the hope anyhow.

Nexev, that is a unique method of vermicomposting that I do not think has been posted about here before. I am glad it is working out well. Nice seeing those bucket levels sinking and the food and bedding being processed. I bet there is nice friable soil underneath each bucket.

LOL EQEQ

Just once I premade a new worm bin days in advance and added food to the bedding prior to getting the lads. It stunk. I've never done that again.

I just make up a new bin just before I need it. When I harvest I never have a perfectly clean harvest with just worms, so some castings and any unprocessed bedding goes into the new bin and worm-ready food.

edited to say that I'm laughing at EQ's earlier post of running up and downstairs and wiping the meat thermometer. NOT laughing at her comment to Nexex, which is how it looks, here.

This post was edited by jasdip on Sun, Dec 21, 14 at 8:32

I suppose we will see just how well it is going in the spring Equinox. Dont think passing judgement on any method during winter outdoors is a good idea, survival was my main goal so to see little ones I know it is at least a step above that.

The soil underneath is my compost bin that I have been burying yard and kitchen waste in for some time. It is predominately very coarse sand though it has been building up and getting a nice dark look to it before I covered it. Now what isnt covered with buckets has a couple feet of straw over it making the entire area a worm haven.

The idea of using the buckets was for ease of feeding and for being able to move colonies of worms come spring to populate the gardens. It might all come apart on me when the weather warms if they become gnat/fly breeders, just have to wait and see on that front.

EQ2, lol ! Once I unfortunately emptied the stuffed bird and perly onions and shrooms in the sink when trying to empty the liquid grease, and I just grabbed them all and put them back in the pan. Obviously it wasn't a meal for people I love but for customers who had rudely invited themselves. I guess Freud would find a perfectly rational explanation in my clumsiness. When a customer's wife asked about the recipe, I told her, then thought : at the end throw everything in the dirty sink, grab with unwashed hands, and stuff everything back in the pan. Incomparable flavor.

Nexev, I didn't get any gnats or fly in the piles this summer, except in the bin. Either predators took care of the flies and gnats, or they couldn't reach the decaying matter they like because of the straw. In the bin they can enter through the holes on the sides. However I add an invasion of flies inside in September, so I allowed spiders in and they did a good job. I spent hours to then catch spiders and put them out last week because my daughter is coming home for a week and she would have had a heart attack if she had been welcome home by such an army of well settled fat spiders on the ceilings ;-)