In order for a flow-through to reach that "continual harvest" equilibrium, there needs to be a balance between the amount of worms working the system and the rate of adding foodstock. It is still possible to overfeed a FT system.

Am I reading your post correctly? Your FT is "less than a week old" and you "have all 24 inches and a few above the top filled" with bedding and raw food? If that's the case, you will basically have worms spread through all levels of the bin...if no overfeeding issues come up. I forgot how narrow your bin is -- 6" or 12"?

My FT is 6 mos. old and has been stuck at the 12-14" level for some time now. I may need to harvest less and feed more, but the worms seem to be happy.

Andrew

My FT wheelie bin is at 19" after almost 11 weeks. Mainly using horse manure probably makes a difference.

The problem with horse poo, is that you don't know if there is too much, as it doesn't get smelly if it's there too long.

The castings coming out the bottom at present would be from the original load of castings that I used to start the FT. There are still some worms coming out with it though.

When I do add fresh vegetable waste, it gets eaten fast enough, which means they are still hungry despite all the manure I have added - or they just like variety.

I will probably do a major harvest soon just to find out how well processed all their food is, even if I have to put a lot back in on top.

I tore apart a couple of buckets I had with egg cartons on the bottom for airflow and vermicomposting happening above. I used this material to fill my homemade flow through. It is about 9 inches wide. So yes I have bedding and raw food throughout the whole 24 inches of height. I even tossed in a sinful amount of cornmeal tempting fate. Boy does the level sink down quick. In just a couple of days it goes from above the bucket rim to a few inches below it. (In my whole one week of experience with flow through.) And being bad and just having to know where all those worms are and what they are all doing... I tore apart the week old flow through fork full by fork full tonight. The worms were indeed all throughout the bin. I think that is an advantage of a flow through. The whole idea of square foot can be cubed and worms can live on more levels and more worms per square foot of floor space can be maintained. That is my theory, right or possibly wrong.

With the very wet bedding (I had added bottles and bottles of water.) the worms were very wet and juicy plump healthy looking. In a bin there would of been problems and smells. And death. I was going for a very wet flow through to try and get some of the advantages of vermiponics. But I'm not quite sure what the advantages are. So I guess I am trying to move towards vermiponics. We previously determined on this board worms can live underwater if the oxygen level is high enough or the carbon dixiode level is low enough. So I'm trying not to be afraid of too much water like I would try to avoid like the plague adding in cardboard like a mad hatter in a bin. I loved adding cardboard. I am thinking the second main advantage of a flow through after the air exchange is the advantage of keeping it wetter. I am thinking more composting of all types happens that way. But that is not a proven scientific fact.

With how quickly the stuff shrinks down (gets processed?)in a flow through I can see where it is difficult to get the depth one wants.

"if no overfeeding issues come up" and there is that temptation to tempt fate with that too. There is much more food available then two months ago when the cupboard was totally bare.

I will agree, not that anybody has said it, that a thicker level is better to give the worms grace to retreat to for any operator errors.

Presently my worms have just turned into breeders. No eggs yet. I would determine the harvest by if no or few eggs and babies remain in the vermicastings removed from the system. That would seem to be a the determining function of depth of vermicomposting bed.

"I will probably do a major harvest soon just to find out how well processed all their food is, even if I have to put a lot back in on top." Do it! Do it! Sorry. When you do do that harvest, please tell us what all the worms are doing. And how each level of the vermicomposting system is doing.

I was thinking of taking a lot out the bottom rather than going through the entire pile, but that might change.

My bin doesn't seem to dry out the way a lot of people say theirs does. I have occasionally done a very quick splash with a water can to damp the hessian mat cover to aid evaporation etc. It's been a long hot dry summer in Australia, and I like to keep the bin cool.

I usually have the lid wide open, or almost closed, but not completely closed, so there should be good airflow. I have no door on the bottom and have a chimney down the centre as well.

Yet I have leachate dripping down into the bottom of the bin, along with some castings etc, which means it is messy. So I cleaned the bottom right out yesterday, hosed it out and dried it with rags as best I could, but today it had more leachate which I think came from the veg scraps I added last night. I run the scraps through a food processor, then add coir to soak up excess moisture until it has the consistence of well.. poo! So it's not an overly wet mix.

I dried up the leachate this afternoon, then used a hand fork to scrape between the bars, and got a couple of litres of castings to drop down. The castings are fluffy, but still wet, probably fluffy from the raking action. There are some fine wood chips/shaving still present from the stables.

I just checked, and the stuff in the bin hasn't settled back down on to the grid yet, though it's been about 8 hours since I did it.

So I find it a bit curious that it's all pretty wet, yet still not settling down, though I have noticed that damp castings tend to be gluggy and sticky.

I might try to get some more out tomorrow.