kitchen waste in a bucket

[blueskyabbc]

Hi everyone,

Guess what? I'm new to vermicomposting. I started just few months ago. I put my kitchen scraps in a bucket. When one is full , I start another one. I forgot about one.
It's been sitting for two weeks now. I was wondering if I should throw this one away because it has been sitting there for so long. The container wasn't closed. Is there anything left for the worms to eat? Would it bring me a mite bloom from a long fermentation process? Hope you can answer my questions.

Thanks

[Jay Blair]

Worms are very resilient. While an unmodified bucket is not the most desirable technique to house them , they can exist and even thrive in it.

To check for mites all you need to do is lay a cracker or piece of bread on the surface. Any worm mite will be drawn to the bread and can be disposed of by throwing the bread slice away.

Some mite infestation in a worm bin is actually desirable when the herd is cultivated to a larger quantity. The mites feed on ill worms primarily and thus enhance overall herd health. If conditions in the bin become too far out of balance then the mite population exceeds desirable levels.

When mite levels become excessive bread traps, adjusting moisture to 60% saturation and aerating the bedding to reduce anaerobic toxicity corrects the trouble. Setting a UV grow light to illuminate the bedding surface also helps. If you don't have a UV light , setting it in sunlight with the bread traps in place will suffice.

I "lost" a 60 qt tote once for about 4 months because my ex wife used it to put some plants on in a window of the sun porch I use for my indoor bins. Luckily I had just re-bedded and fed it when she moved it thinking it was an unstocked bin and the water overflow kept my E.f. stock within moisture requirements. When I rediscovered the non- maintained bin the following spring I had about 300 worms in it.

Hope I answered your questions sufficiently?

[blueskyabbc]

Hi Jay
Thank for answering my post. I appreciate all the information you gave me about the mites.

But I guess, I didn't explain myself clearly. The bucket which receives the food sraps don't have any worms in it. I just put the the food in there. I usually feed my worms once a week. I put the whole bucket in their bin and wait till they have eaten around 70% of it. Then I add more food.

It just so happened that I had extra food scaps and I'm left with one bucket in which the food waste has been in for two weeks. I'm wondering if the food sraps have been decomposing for too long to be good for the worms.

I'm also afraid of the potential mites bloom I could get from the long fermentation process of the food scraps. Once I sprinkled some corn meal on top of a bin. I left it there waiting for most of it to get eaten before adding more, and the next thing I had was a nice mite bloom. I did put some bread on top of the bin. It did seem to take a long time for the mites to go to the bread. They didn't get that fast and that big of a number on it. I did bring the bin out on the sun. It didn't seem to help that much or maybe I didn't leave it out long enough. There were Eisenia Hortensis in that bin. I know they like it cool. I didn't want the bin to get too dry. I like your idea of the UV light. I'll try it next time.

Since the EH prefer 70-80% moisture level, would'nt it make the bin more susceptible to mites? Do you have that kind of worms?
I have Eisenia Hortensis and Eisenia Fetida.

Do you know how big are the Black soldier flies? Are they as big as a fruit flies? I saw few black flies in one of my bins. They don't fly. They are little bigger than fruit flies but much smaller than house fly.

Thanks for your time

[Jay Blair]

Blueskyabbc,
I have pre-composted wastes for as much as 30 days in my digester before feeding to my bins with no negative effects to my stock.

aeration helps to minimize mites. I use an aquarium pump run into a 1 liter soda bottle as a water bubbler vibration damper.

Your E.h and E.f. can easily exist in the warmer temps. I routinely keep my E.f. bins at 75 to 85 f. I just keep them aerated and maintain moisture at 70 to 75 %

Soldier flies get to about 5/8 inch. Here is the reference page on soldier flies from Texas A & M Cooperative extension service field guide

insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/cimg226.html

Hope this is of help to you. BTW I invited a Canadian worm grower and large scale waste composter to come and maybe offer you advice more applicable to your region

Jay

[blueskyabbc]

Hi Jay,

I was relieved to know you pre-composted your wastes for 30 days. I have small bins ( 14'' x 20''). I aerate them by turning the bedding. How do you do it? Temperature is not a problem since I keep my E.h. in the basement and the E.f. on the main floor. Do you get mites blooms? Problably not since you use a vibration damper. I don't think I could do it because my food wastes are not that liquid. Do you think that keeping the moisture levef of the E.h. around 80% would bring more mites in the bedding?

Thanks for the help

[Jay Blair]

I build aerators using aquarium pump aerators . I connect the lines to a 1 liter soda bottle so the line from the pump extends to the bottom of the bottle and the line to the bin is at the top of the bottle.

I seal the gaps where the lines go into the bottle top with silicone gasket maker. Then fill the bottle 3/4 full and hang it from a cieling hook or stick it in a water bucket so it doesnt dance like an out of balance washing machine.

The long line into the bin is sealed off and I punch a series of pin holes in it "soaker hose" style.

The pump bubbles air through the water bottle which dampens the 60 hz vibrations as the two feet of soaker line at the end pumps air into the bedding.

Also I can invert the bottle and the pump will force the liter of water into the bedding through the soaker hose moisturizing the bedding from the center.

[blueskyabbc]

Hi Jay,

I'm interested in using an aerator for my E.h. as I don't like to disturb them much. I had a bad experience about turning their bedding too much. How should I go about it? How often should I have it on ? How long each time? I hope my questions don't sound too stupid.

[csimba]

I had forgotten about a plastic coffee can full of kitchen scraps - left in the sun for weeks. Talk about a noxious mass of goo to toss in the worm bin!. Just did the usual - dump scraps on top and cover with a double handfull of dry grass clippings/leaves/whatever. Worms were all over it by the end of the day.
So... worms will eat the bacteria from whatever source derived.
As for aerating a bin - won't hurt the worms at all. However, the less you disturb them the better.

[blueskyabbc]

Hi Csimba,

Thanks for answering my post. I've read somewhere to give the precomposted food after 3-7 days of the composting process. I was wondering if my kitchen wastes had been composting too long to do any good to my worms. From what you told me and from what Jay told me, it is never too late. Good.

¬As for aerating a bin - won't hurt the worms at all. However, the less you disturb them the better¬

That's why I was considering using Jay' aerator instead of turning the bedding. I thought using the aerator wouldn't disturb the worms as much. I'm still wondering whether if it should kept on at all time or not. Jay didn't have time to tell what he thought about it. Maybe the aerator would be better to use with other kinds of bin, maybe not with the small ones I have.

[tt]

I dig in my worms all the time. It sorta like gardening you get to see how the babies are how close to harvest you are. I have reds, and Euros. I turn them, fluff them and so far my worms seem to like it. Been doing it sinse 97. I even use a pitch fork in the 900 litre bins and the windrows . Simply because my reach is not the greatest hanging over the bins