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| Two days ago I overdid it. My flowthrough is doing so well, that I fed it a three inch layer of food scraps, UCG and shredded cardboard all mixed together. The worms didn't respond well, and now I know why. It is heating! OK, so how do I cool it off? Hopefully the worms are either below or above the hot areas. I can see that lots of them are above. They are crawling all over the walls of the bin.
When this thing cools off, the worms are going to have a feast. I hope. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| This reply is from a retired fire captain. If it is hot, add water to cool. Your flow thru will drain. That is what I have done in my in-ground bin. Good luck! |
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- Posted by equinoxequinox (My Page) on Sat, May 8, 10 at 2:11
| A fan. Where did you find that volume of food scraps? Sounds like you are having so much fun with that flow through it should be illegal. I'm going to try this in January.
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| ""UCG and shredded cardboard all mixed together"" Remember, mixing food and bedding will cause heating up. It might be better to use cooled or frozen water bottles wrapped in newspaper rather than adding water to the bin. This way you avoid getting leachete, getting a too wet a bin which may cause mite explosions etc. |
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| I have mixed food and bedding before with no problems. I think it depends on the food. In this case too much UCG caused the heating. I have learned something. In the past I have used a lot of USG, but it did not absorb much water, and there was no heating. This time I got it good and wet. I was just trying to do something similar to Bentley's home made manure. I even let it sit for three days before I fed it to the worms. It did not heat up until I put it in the bin. I'm guessing that there were not enough microbes outside of the bin to cause a bloom. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Home made manure
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| I have made 2 batches of homemade manure. I let kitchen scraps rot 10 days a a bucket before mixing. I then froze the "gunk", which was fermenting! When I thawed and fed, the worms left it alone for a week. In 2 weeks the worms are all over it. I think when you smash all the stuff together it decomposes slower due to lack of air. |
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