Personally i use layer feeding as E. Hortensis really doesnt like to be bothered much.

Just throwing scraps on top could lead to problems with flies and fruit flies in an indoor bin. As you didnt specify where it was im just hazarding a guess.

Some specific bins are designed to be used certain ways. Pocket feeding usually requires a deeper bedding 10-12". If your bin is a stckable with 6-8" trays it would explain why they suggest that method.

Bryan

Pick the one that feels most comfortable to you and I can pretty much guarantee the worms will be happy with your choice!

Kelly S

Seems to me "feeding frenzy", if it can be called that, would occur more readily with what the worms would recognize as competition for "this piece of food me and these other six worms are eating on". That would give credence to the pocket-feeding method, whereas top-feeding could create a certain sense of apathy. An example of this theorem would be a pasture filled with grazing cows unhurriedly...grazing. But when Mr. Rancher puts some feed in the trough, cattle stampedes result.

Chuckiebtoo

So far, the worms seem pretty resilient. We were away for 8 days and before we left I put heaps of food on top in the wormbin (we'd just had a bit of a party and there were lots of leftovers) This in addition to the food I'd buried in the bin a couple of days earlier. I knew this was silly - but didnt want to waste the scraps ! When we got back, I opened the bin with trepidation. When I lifted the lid, the condensation that had collected ran down like a river. The large piece of turkish bread (which I hadnt bothered to break into smaller pieces) looked like an alien spaceship with long BLUE hairs. The handfuls of rice had turned bright red. The custard tarts were green. It was a scary, colourful and smelly jungle. Not a worm in sight at the top. I thought I'd killed them. But when I dug around, I found the worms, looking very fat and happy I thought, around the bananas & other food that I'd buried. Even more surprisingly, I found more of them at the bottom of the bin where it was quite wet rather than in the middle. I'm not even sure if they had bothered to go up to the top to see the buffet I'd put out for them.

It was a... smelly jungle.

Smelly doesn't cut it with Mrs. Joe. So I don't add any extra feedstock before I travel. They don't notice that I've been gone.

When you layer your compost, do you have to somehow remove the stuff on the bottom at some point or can you just keep adding it on? I mean if you buy a 30 ga plastic tub and start with 5" of bedding, and keep adding food with paper on top do you just keep going for years until the bin is full? I know weight would be an issue, but other than that.. ?

Thanks,
Jim

Harvesting a top-fed bin is pretty simple, really. When the bin gets full remove the material from the top few inches that is still recognizable and contains nearly all of the worms. The material in the very bottom of the bin is usually pretty wet and dense, will usually contain a few worms but not massive numbers, and will contain little if any recognizable OM. This "finished" layer, which is usually a few inches deep, is removed from the bin and the unfinished stuff is placed back in the now empty bin with a few inches of space at the top so that top-feeding can begin again.

I've found several top-fed worm bins made from 18 gallon plastic storage totes that managed the kitchen output of a family of two for 6-8 months before being ready for harvest. This is good if harvesting the bin is not high on one's list of fun weekend anctivities, but was frustrating for those who wanted worm castings as quickly as they could get them, but then we've always heard that one man's feast is another man's famine.... ::grin::

Let me know if this explanation of harvesting doesn't make sense and I'll try to post some pictures.

Kelly S

I'm not in a huge hurry to spend hours sorting worms, so even if it were to take a year to get full, you wouldn't hear me complain ;-)

Thanks,
Jim