why it stinks most likely is because it's too wet. perhaps you built your bin too high too soon? some worms like to mainly stay at the surface so if you have a deep bin expect their to be lots of unfinished stuff on the bottom like paper clumps i find that this is what causes it to stink. make a shallow bin and then as they start finishing that up build ontop of it with new bedding and they will migrate up.

i have the same problem although like you i have few worms many of them too small to have sex but i built my bin up high and the bottom part is full of paper clumps and it smelled bad so i harvested what i could which was about half or more then half of a 5gal bucket and i built a shallow smaller bin thats wide im keeping my worms/millipedes in here to compost and when they finish up i will build it up. to a certain point and just let them finish it off and then harvest.

i just started this today and i will be buying more worms as i only got 3 worms and a lot of millipedes.so it will take a while for them to breed. im hoping it will work i mean im tired of the damn paper clumps -.- but that i believe is what causes it to smell at least in my bin

Yeah, usually lack of air/too much water. Quiet often they go hand in hand.

To help it out, use corrigated cardboard as it doesn't compact nearly as much as paper does. While decomposing food can smell (especially things like broccoli), that distinctive sharp and nasty odour is anerobic decay. More vents, less moisture (which tends to collapse everything and fill gaps) and more cardboard will help out. Getting the bottom processed in bins I always found a bit tricky as that is also where the water always went, one of the reasons I ended up with a flow through.

Oh man, I bet you are both right. I put a LOT of shredded paper on top of the unfinished stuff from last time. I was hoping to improve the smell but I think it's just making it worse.

The majority of my food waste is high-water.. I chop into small pieces, squish the tea bags,, maybe should drain a few days? It sits in a pail and goes in weekly.

Celbrise-my starter worms seemed to do absolutely nothing for 2 months, then suddenly I noticed there were worms everywhere. (I poke around the bin too much). Millipedes?? Wow, that's a new one. Where on earth did you get those?

PeterK2-it's pretty distinct stink. ;) I have the bin outside atm but I can't keep it out there as we're getting near freezing at night and winter temps hit -40. I will try to find some cardboard.. you mean the stuff from large cartons rather than cereal boxes I assume?

Do you think I should take the paper out? I'm reluctant to disturb the worms more after having them sitting on my floor for a couple of days. (Worst harvesting method ever)

Thanks!
Ivy

Yep the stuff package boxes are made of. Two walls with the rippled middle stuff giving it strength. Worms love going into those pipes as a side benefit :). If you ask at a local store they usually are happy to give some away for free.

Some things to dry it out without disturbing it too much.
Make some drainage holes if you can. If you have any standing water on the bottom you're definately wetter than you want.

Also if it's that wet, you can tip it on the side and let any excess water drain.

Pick a side of the bin and move all the compost and food off to the side until you get to the bottom. Then load up that area with nothing but cardboard pointed vertically. This will create air shafts going from the bottom of the bin to the top. Then if you leave the top off (can cover with a bug netting if you want) and it will wick a lot of the moisture out.

If you want to add less moisture, if you freeze the food and then thaw it, lots of the moisture will be released when it thaws (things like broccoli you can squeeze and tons of water just dribbles out). So you'll be adding less when you feed. You can also add more cardboard when you add the wetter food stuff. One of the general rules is you can never have too much cardboard bedding. It can be a pain if it doesn't get eaten and you have to remove it when harvesting, but sometimes by adding more you end up with less as the bottom doesn't go anerobic and the cardboard gets eaten instead.

Anyway just some ideas to play around with. Everyone has their different fixes or combinations of them. The good thing is the worms are still alive. :)

Some foods can really stink the joint up. Like PeterK2 says above, brocolli can wreak havoc on the nostrils as it breaks down. I had the unfortunate experience of finding that out the hard way in my indoor bin...also as stated above too wet and compacted bedding will smell as it breaks down due to anaerobic conditions. My remedy for the smell as well as breaking down the bedding rather efficiently is adding beneficial bacteria in the form of lactobacillus. I make it all the time from water that I use to rinse my rice with. I had a stinky bed (that dont sound right, haha) and I sprayed some of the lacto on it and it completely got rid of the stench because the lacto bacteria will consume the odor causing bacteria. All organic and cheap as heck!

From bad to worse!

I've been following your advice and removing excess water, Peter2K. I added some cardboard wicks, siphoned off water. Broccoli really *does* reek. I tossed a bunch of soggy and reeking paper plus the last 10 days worth of food scraps into a bag and told my BFF I had a present for him. *g* (He has an outdoor compost bin)

Yesterday I had a mad worm stampede! Dead worms all over the linoleum. I actually feel really bad about it, poor little guys. Something is very wrong in wormville. It's the adults who are bailing, the smaller worms seem to be ok. I took the worms who were hanging around tho top of the bin out and put them in an emergency box with finished vc.

3DinAz that's very interesting! I'm supposed to take probiotics but they are super extra pricy up here in Canadia. I eat red, white, black, brown, wild rice all the time. How do you make it?

I make my own bread with a 'sourdough starter', a culture of yeast and bacteria which lives in a jar on my counter. Now that I think on it, I'm pretty sure the bacteria involved is(are) a lactobacterium. Hmm maybe I should start dumping extra starter in there.. only problem is, the stuff smells like a beer factory and my neighbours already think I'm weird. Heh.

Ivy

Sorry to hear about the worms, I was hoping you'd caught the problem before it got to that. I've had a bin crash (almost everyone does at least once) and it seems to always be due to moisture. I think it's a positive feedback thing. Things get wet and then compress, as it's compressed it can't breath and it gets wetter, as it gets wetter...

Good idea removing some worms and putting them in a safe haven. Not sure how much smelly stuff you have left after giving your BFF a nasty present heh, but sounds like it really needs an airing out. If you can I'd add in lots of corrigated cardboard, to a point where it's a bin of cardboard with some food mixed in as opposed to food with some cardboard. And maybe a corner that's just bedding for them to run to if needed. You really want air to be flowing around and have zero visable water. I'd also leave the top off, maybe cover the top with some mosquito netting and a bungiecord. Once the anerobic smell has gone, you can reintroduce those worms, also see how the ones still inside are doing.

I find that in general, with good airflow and not too wet (partly go hand in hand) worms are pretty tough and things just run themselves, my system is probably on the drier side. But those runaway wet bins being one of the easiest things catching people out. So you can never have too much bedding and if you're feeding quite a bit in a bin stystem, the amount of water you're adding via the food might be a feeding limit as well as just how much the worms can eat.

BTW, since you mentioned the smell of broccoli and thus use it, in order to cut down the water I'd freeze and then thaw if you can even if it's just this stuff. A stem frozen and thawed can be twisted and wrung out like a dish cloth and will release as much water as one, it's crazy. I'd put it close to melons for water content.

Lactic acid bacteria is really simple to make. The steps that I take are as follows;
- Take 1 cup of rice (doesnt matter the type as long as its not one of the ready mix ones with cheese powder or something like that). Add 2 cups of water. It will always be 1:2 (rice to water so you can go more or less depending on how much you want to make but a little goes a long way).

- Place both in a container big enough to handle it (I use a bowl). Give a little stir and you should have rice with cloudy water.

- Strain the cloudy water off the rice. I strain mine into a mason jar. Make sure that you have a good amount of headspace. I usually have at least half of the jar full because you want that air above the serum. Take a paper towel, napkin, clean rag...whatever you have that is porous. The micro organisms will find their way through it and into the water. Some people dont cover it with anything at all but I find this step to be of great benefit because it keeps the bugs and other things out. I have found larvea in mine from bugs getting in laying eggs. Let that sit for approx 5 days give or take a day. Somewhere warm and out of direct sunlight since UV rays can kill the bacteria. I do mine on top of my fridge or in a cabinet. What you are looking for is a separation of the layers of fluid. You'll have some solids that go to the top, some on the bottom and a clear lacto serum in the middle.

- You can take that whole thing and mix it but the way I initially learned it, is to take a meat injector (I get one from my local grocery for $4) and go right through the top layer to the middle where the serum is and extract that. If you dont have an injector, you can use a strainer of some sort...or you just go for it without straining (its really your call).

- To this serum, you would add milk at a ratio of 1:10 (serum to milk)filling your container with approx 2/3 air space (again air space is important) left over. The type of milk does not matter, skim, low fat, whole, powdered...whatever. Cover it loosely...you want air to get in. Let that ferment for approx 7 days and you will end up with a cheese layer with pure lacto serum underneath. Remove the cheese. You can give it to your dogs, cats, live stock etc. I give mine to my worm bin (the worms love it but be warned it will smell a bit). The left over liquid is your lactobacillus.

- You can bottle it (again, I use a mason jar but you dont have to) and put it in your fridge where it will go dormant and live for up to 2 years (from what I was told) OR you can now add unsulphered molasses at a 1:1 ratio and store it at room temperature where it is said to be able to last 2 years. This finished product can diluted at a ratio of 1:20 (lacto to non-chlorinated water) and even more so, you can further dilute that amount down. For example, you could get 20 gallons from 1 gallon of lacto serum...and then mix 4tbsp of that to 1 gallon of nonchlorinated water. So like I said above, a little can go a loooong way! In this diuluted form though, the shelf life is roughly 6 months.

-Spray it on your bin to get rid of smells. I used it on my bin to get rid of smell but I also ensured that my bedding was good also. I also sprayed some in my compost tumbler to suppress smell from too much grass clippings. I also believe that it can serve another purpose there. Lacto bacteria are very good at breaking down organic matter...so its like a win, win in my compost and vermicompost. Some farms spray it on their animal manure piles to suppress smell and mix it in live stock water and food to kill off other bacteria like ecoli and it also facilitates nutrient absorption in animals.

Something I am experimenting with is that I also drench it on my soil to help break down amendments and make nutrients become available to plants a bit sooner. One thing that I dont understand about this bacteria is wether it should be considered anaerobic or aerobic. By my logic, it would anaerobic since it flourishes in a fermented environment. We know that aerobic and anaerobic microbes dont get along in the soil food web so I am not sure how long the lacto would last in that environment. Either way, the aerobic microbes feed on the anaerobic ones so its still a win, win for me.

So there you have it. Its simple and cheap. I hope that this all makes sense. Let me know if you have more questions.

Sorry by the time I finished my above post, I didnt realize that things had gotten worse. You might want to just kick up some fresh materials and go with it. Like PeterK2 says just watch the moisture content of your items. I use alot of melons in my bin because the worms absolutely love it. When I do this, I dont worry at all about keeping the bedding moist. I live in desert environment and the bedding still stays moist enough for the worms.

Peter2K, that's what I'm going to do, fill the whole bin with cardboard chips. I'm beginning to wonder if the only problem really IS water though. The bin was definitely anaerobic, but not that much worse than the previous 4 months. It could be that the harvest and sitting on a plastic bag started a cascade of bad, as you suggested. I also put in an "organic freshener" which had baking soda in it, right before the harvest. That was dumb of me, I was thinking 'hey, carbonate should be good", and forgot that sodium is Not so good.

I saved a bunch of baggies of scraps and have them in the freezer, gonna thaw one out and put it in a corner with regular bedding before I fill with cardboard chips.

3DinAz, that was fascinating, I've printed your post out and am going to give it a try when I have more time to re-read. I'm betting the process reeks though! Lactobac is a very odd genus, they keep reclassifying species in and out of it and making whole new groupings. When I took plant pathology I think they said there were over 300 different species in the genus and it was difficult to even tell you had Lactobac because there are so many lactic-acid forming bacteria. I believe they are all anaerobic, in that they don't use oxygen to drive their metabolism, but are "air-tolerant" in that it won't kill them.

I'm interested in making lactobacillus, but am wondering about the smell. My wife wouldn't be too keen on it if it smelled very bad.

Well here's a vid I love as it shows what can be done with great airflow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JOa_fgraUM

BTW by no means recommended to feed like this (and certainly not in a bin), but it just shows a point. These systems actually run on the dry side (always wanting to dry out), but I've found it easier to add water than to try and keep it away. The only difference between this and a bin is airflow and it will be naturally drier, yet they are so forgiving. It's why I'm always recommending getting the maximum aeration you can manage. Luck.

The lacto itself does have a rather "peculiar" smell to it but its not so bad that you can smell it from a distance. Once its stabalized with the molasses, that is the smell I get fom it. A very sweet aroma.

GreenIvy, thanks for clearing that up (about the aerobic/anaerobic issue). That makes total sense and also helps me to understand why I can store the serum in an air tight container like my mason jars.

I agree with PeterK2 on about all his points. I am a little surprised he didn't yet mention the bottom section of cardboard egg cartons. The thick cardboard will absorb a lot of moisture but they tend to retain shape to keep air pockets around the bin.

If you watched the youtube like PK2 posted it shows a bag style worm inn. This is the system I run along with another flow through and I have not had your problems with over watering.

One idea jumps to mind if you're willing to do an experiment and if you have the worms left to do it. Try taking a fabric bag and filling it with the bedding and food scraps and worms to replace a bin. This could even be as simple as a reusable polypropylene grocery bag. This bag will allow for greater air flow and oxygenation relative to the bin you have without the price of a new system.

The story I heard was the worm inn started as someone filling an old pair of jeans as a worm bin.

3DinAz - would this brew also be a way to help colonize a new system with bacteria for the worms to eat thus jump starting a bin?

He did suggest lining the bottom with cardboard oriented vertically.

That video was mind boggling! I would be terribly worried about fluids leaking all over the floor with a bag system like that. I've been chopping up my food scraps into 4cm (2inch) chunks, he threw in what looked like an entire bok choi! He didn't say where it was, looked like a garage? It'd be a great summer project for my balcony tho.

No escapees today and the worms aren't hanging out on the walls. I think they're much happier. *fingers crossed* I estimate about 30 worms went floor surfing so I should still have ~800ish, counting the ones who are still hanging out in the rescue resort. (Pretty good for 4 months! But well short of the pound of worms per square foot suggested).

Oddly it was the big adults who tried to flee, the tiny guys stayed put. I wonder why? I would have thought the babies would be more susceptible to bad conditions. I have noticed that in my bin the larger worms hang out at the very bottom.

mr yan,
To be honest, one of the things that Im currently trying to figure out is wether or not this serum would in fact kick start things in the bin. By my logic, since lacto b is so effective in breaking down organic material, it stands to reason that adding amounts of the serum to the bedding would in fact aid in the decomp process thereby making the items available to the worms at a faster rate (that in addition to conusming the bacteria that cause odors). How much faster? That I dont know. As I stated above, in a soil environment the lacto probably does not last very long before the aerobic microbes find and consume them but I would imgagine that small colonies might be able to hide out long enough to survive and do their thing.

The Creepy pants! Mr Yan :)
http://www.redwormcomposting.com/worm-bins/the-creepy-pants-vermicomposter/

GreenIvy,
Any drippings are channeled into a single point with the worm inn idea so that a bucket under the bin is all you need. I find it does not drip much unless I just poured too much water on it (say 1.5 L or more) or you are greatly over feeding it.

If you start following his blog he talks about doing most of this in the basement laundry room. At times his wife complains of the fruit flies. If you haven't found the blog it is a wealth of info on worm bins, and he's a canuck too, go to redwormcomposting.com

At first it is mind boggling how much can be added but then you start to play with it and see what you can add. Last year I added about 10 pears at once whole and it worked fine. 5 weeks ago I added 6 semi rotted large eggplants at once add all I did was hit them with a 3 tine hand rake a few itmes once they were in the bin - there's no trace of the eggplants now.

3DinAz, are you spraying with the stabilized culture of lacto and molasses? I think spraying with just molasses would greatly increase bacterial activity.

Mr yan,I did look up Bentley's site, and wow is there a lot of info there. What an interesting guy, he's like a one man worm Mythbusters. :)