Leachate is really a waste product, not an asset. I'm afraid we have the worm bin manufacturers to thank for the over-hyping of leachate as "worm tea" which is supposed to be wonderful plant food. Because a commercial worm bin has to have some kind of way of handling leachate/excess moisture, I suppose it's understandable that the manufacturers want to depict the drainage spigots as something catchier than just an overflow valve - still, I think it's misleading.

The thing about leachate is that it's not really concentrate of "black gold", i.e., fully processed and plant-available vermicompost. It's just excess moisture that has drained through the system, including, to be sure, *some* nutrient rich material from whatever finished castings are in the system, but also indiscriminately including the excess juice from yesterday's melon peels and everything in between.

Some people will make a fuss about the possibility that worm bin leachate can actually have harmful bacteria in it, too, in case there was harmful bacteria on some of the food waste that didn't get overpowered yet by the beneficial microbiome of fully processed worm castings. I think this possibility is usually pretty remote, myself.

Maybe more concerning is the fact that lots of moisture draining off means there is lots of moisture in the system, and that can be a red flag because if the bin contents are too soggy, there is probably not enough air moving through the system to keep everything aerobic. Everybody gets excess moisture in the bin from time to time and some runoff is inevitable, but if you're producing lots of it regularly, you may need to adjust the amount of bedding and the amount of food in the system.

Since your bin is only a couple of months old, the leachate from your bin is definitely just liquid from the kitchen scraps etc. breaking down and IMHO the bin is most likely too wet. Watch that the bottom part doesn't get anaerobic. How big is your bin? You could line the inside wall with a couple layers of corr. cardboard. Without upsetting it too much, just move the bedding and stuff gently away from the wall so you could push the folded cb down. It will help absorb excess moisture. When the pieces start to breakdown, replace with fresh ones and the wet ones you take out could be shredded by hand quite easily.

I can't really comment on the pros and cons of leachate 'cause I've never tested it myself but as Otis mentioned be careful to make sure it doesn't stay too wet towards the bottom 'cause it will start to stink. In 2 of my bins I've put down a 1 - 2 inch layer of wood shavings topped with landscape cloth. That way if any of your additions to the bin produce a lot of moisture when they break down(like cucumber of fresh pumpkin) the shavings can absorb it and the contents don't go anaerobic. Landscape cloth keeps a clean separation between the castings and shavings and makes harvesting the castings much easier. The last thing I want is a bunch of wet mucky castings that I need to dry out before they are user friendly.

Harry