You are overdoing it. Worms can't eat fresh food. It needs to be decomposing first. In a new bin decomposition happens slowly. It will take some time before you see your worms eat 1/2 their weight every day. What to do in the mean time depends a lot on what is happening in the bin. If the bin does not stink, and the worms appear happy, leave things alone for a week or so. If the bin smells, and is a sloppy mess, add bedding, then leave things alone for a week or so.

What kind of juicer pulp is it? If it's Citrus, it might be better to remove it, if possible and just leave the Bananas. Your worms will need time to acclimatize to their new surroundings and a load of Citrus at this point, just might be additional stress that they don't need.

Shaul

Thanks for your responses. The pulp is carrots, celery, spinach and kelp. They seem to be loving it so far and there's no bad odors so far. Just a couple of fruit fly's everytime I uncover to check on them. As soon as I open the lid I see them crawl downwards like crazy and I always catch them munching on the pulp. The bananas is what seem's to be taking for ever. I also added some organic corn tortillas that went bad on me about a week ago and they seem to be breaking down but I'm not sure if the worms are eating it or not. My goal is to end up with top of the line organic castings. I'm not feeding my worms any manure because I don't know what the cowsare fed for example. I'm trying not to use newspaper because of the ink and when I shred the brown grocery paper bags I make sure I cut out the ink before putting stuff in the bin. I'm just experimenting and hoping for good results.

""I'm trying not to use newspaper because of the ink.""

In North America, newspaper inks are almost always soy based. It's safe for the worms, plants and people.

This post was edited by JerilynnC on Sat, Dec 22, 12 at 19:31

From your description, you are doing fine. Give the worms a week or so to catch up, then move ahead like you have been, only maybe a little slower for a while.

You have to take into account the water weight. Simply put you have no where near three pounds of actual food weight without the water. Not a bad idea to add dry bedding when using high water items.

To the poster that said soy based ink is "safe". That is not true, soy based inks still have VOC's( volatile organic compounds). However it is safer than petroleum based inks.

Thanks everyone. And I can see why you would think soy based products are safe but I am trying to produce my castings as close as possible to 100% organic and 90% of the soy grown in the United States is genetically engineered.

Fair enough. Soy based inks have VERY VERY VERY LOW levels of VOC's. :) Heck, even wood releases some VOCs as do some trees as they grow (turpenes, for example).

Actually, the USDA says none, if you want to believe them.

"Using more soy oil in the vehicle means that less pigment (black, blue, red, and yellow) is needed, because the soy oil provides a lighter vehicle," says Erhan. And soy-based printing inks contain no volatile organic compounds."

Note this is an OLD article, 1995, so take it for what it's worth.

Curious, what makes you think that ALL VOC's are "unsafe"?

Here is a link that might be useful: Soy based ink

This post was edited by JerilynnC on Sun, Dec 23, 12 at 2:51

Perhaps it's the "volatile" part of it.
If it is so safe then why do the soy based ink cans I have all have a health rating of 1. If it was safe it would say 0. Whether vegetable based ink or petroleum based they both share many of the same additives. It reminds me of ethanol vs gasoline.
There is also no guarantee that the newspaper you have is printed with soy based ink unless you call and talk with a press operator.
There is also a vegetable printing act of 1994 which deals with the percentage of vegetable oil(inks) for Federal agencies.

I don't really trust the govt. I will just leave it at that.

When you say 'health rating of 1', are you referring to the NFPA Hazard Rating System?

"When organic materials decompose, they release a
number of compounds that collectively are
considered Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)."

Guess we should stop composting?

Here is a link that might be useful: Composting and VOCs

If your'e trying to avoid all VOC's you better avoid bread of any kind too.

HMIS Hazard Rating
For example- http://threedimensionalink.com/PDF/SF_soy_all_colors.pdf
I have been printing for 19 years and ink is not the only thing transferring to the paper. Fountain solutions that clean the plate also have voc's, blanket washes to clean the ink off the blanket also contain voc's. The blanket washes are worse than any ink, you can smell it when you walk into a print shop.

To mr yan, not the point I'm trying to make. I'm also going to drive my truck down the road that may not be safe. I'm still going to do it though. I just don't like it when people say that soy ink is "safe" when it isn't.

""To mr yan, not the point I'm trying to make. I'm also going to drive my truck down the road that may not be safe. I'm still going to do it though. I just don't like it when people say that soy ink is "safe" when it isn't.""

I guess we will have to agree to disagree here. Soy ink is indeed safe.
[Maybe your definition and my definition of 'safe' are different, however]

Hi everyone! Just want to share that Urban Worm has free worm composting classes every month and the next one is on January 6, 2013 at Urban Adamah farm, 1050 Parker St. You can get all your questions answered, learn how to start a bin and harvest castings.

www.urbanwormcomposting.org

Here is a link that might be useful: Urban Worm

lmao! I guess we will then.

For others that want info, I added a link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wikipedia Soy Ink