OK, I have had a worm bin for a little over a year and a half. I have read about the usefulness of using worms to compost and process kitchen scraps into useful compost (and fish bait!). This has worked well for about a year and a half. The bin did not smell, was unobtrusive (actually most people ignored it until I told them what it contained). The worms were very active and made quick work of any scraps I threw into the bin. This changed...
Day one...there was a funky smell. I thought it was the garbage so I took out the trash and thought that was that. Then, day two...I came home to a smell....like I threw away all the Thanksgiving leftovers in a can and forgot about it until St. Patrick's day. Horrible.
Well, the smell was my precious worm bin! I had a massive die off. I do not know what happened. The weather had been cool and suddenly we were having summer temps ( I really only cool one room in my house with A/C). Maybe I put something that didn't go over well with the worms. I am not sure all I know is it stunk and had to go! Here is a picture of what I was working with... (note all the worms you see in the picture were digging in the compost heap in the sky)
Well, I mixed in some dry leaves to try to "dilute" the dead worms and help keep any survivors. (I also moved the worm bin outside...way outside). The leaf "dilution" did not work and about all I could get out of the bin (besides smell) were these funky mushrooms (maybe these killed the worms?)
Well, about a month later no improvement so I need to get "rid" or "throw-out" this muck. Why the sudden change and not let the compost finish? Well, I had some persuasion:
Those little white crawlies aren't worms... they are maggots. Hmm, I don't like maggots very much, but I do hear they are high in protein (in case you haven't had lunch yet). They are much more noisy than worms as well (all flopping and crawling about). Well lets do what a lot of people do with their problems, bury them!!
I'm all about some tomato plants. They are, however, heavy feeders and my soil is basically an un-fired brick. So I dug some holes beside the plants (this will serve to hold the compost and give me a more direct conduit for watering). I added some crushed eggshells to the bottom of the holes. This should provide calcium to the plants to help prevent blossom end rot. Calcium helps prevent this fruit wasting condition (as does even moisture). I capped the holes with a thin layer of soil and then covered that with mulch. The nutrients from the compost will leach into the soil as I water the plants and they can grow roots to reach the compost to draw up the nutrients as well. I was going to use the compost anyway so now it is in play!
Oh, in case you were wondering: I do plan to start my worm bin over. I have a trick up my sleeve...I don't keep all my worms in one bin! So, we will go over starting a bin from scratch and I'll include pictures of the bin. Stay tuned!
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