I have taken to running all scraps through an old food processor, freezing, thawing, and then feeding. I have an old ice cream bucket with a lid I keep in the kitchen where I put the store leftovers and scraps. When I get ready to feed the worms I grind everything up in an old Black & Decker food processor (it's pretty big). I'll add cut up napkins, papertowels, coffee grinds, etc. to the goo. I dump it back into the bucket, freeze it over night, put the bucket outside to thaw, and feed the worms when I get home from work. I dig out a corner and dump a large scoop, cover with castings/bedding in the bin and move to the next corner and repeat until all four corners are "fed". I cut a piece of thin cardboard to cover the bin and let the worms go to town. Within a few days the food is 100% gone. Each time I find huge globs of worms in each corner still working over the area. Lately I've been feeding cucumbers out of my garden that have turned a bit before I could use them otherwise. Since I started freezing, the fruit fly population has really dropped, not totally gone, but noticeably dropped.

The vast wealth of knowledge on vermicomposting is easily available to anybody who takes the time to simple read through the free archives. All it takes is time. I spent enjoyable months reading through the entire library of vermicomposting posts at gardenweb before taking on the responsibility for the lives of compost worms. I learned tons from others failures making my first system much more likely to succeed. That is why others took the time to post for me and for others like me. When I post my readers know by my name they will get good value for their time spent reading my words since I can distill the the knowledge of 10,000 posts to answer their specific question. Basically it boils down to newbies please add tons more bedding, and a bit of $$$ for a pound of bedding with a touch of worms can be avoided by a wee, tiny bit of reading. For those in too much of a hurry or too lazy or who purchased worms and then realized they may need to learn a bit about their living charges long time posters patiently answer the same questions over and over and over and over and over again for new posters. If I asked a person how old they were 5 times in a row in one minute they might eventually appear rude. I could do this now. Imagine how it might feel. A good or standard rule of thumb is to lurk at a board for a month or more before posting. This helps the poster gain knowledge of the culture of the board and get the best response to the post. Celbrise I admire your enthusiasm for the topic. But you are killing us here. No doubt you are among the sweetest, most dedicated vermicomposters here. My fear is you are leading newbies who may not know a poster who has a phd in worm knowledge, or a worm farmer since age 7, or a worm seller of tons of worms from a person with 3 to 100 worm who has been vermicomposting for 3 weeks down an unusual vermicomposting path devoid of moisture absorbing bedding yet including materials that have been known to be less than good for worms such as material that has not had access to air and may have VOC's. My advice is to read the archives 10 times more often and advise newbies 10 times less often. My apologies since I really should of mentioned something sooner to help guide you. But I mistakenly thought you would get the hint with the first 6 posters to mention it and I did not want to pile on. My error. sbryce: Please leave a forwarding website since we have all been needing migraine medication lately. P.S. I took mega care to not be rude. P.P.S. I have no problem being rude. It is a bit rude of a poster to ask a question that can be answered by 27 seconds of research. It is gracious for an expert vermicomposter to take 15 minutes to answer a question for someone lazy. It is more than gracious for an expert vermicomposter to take 15 minutes or an hour to answer with details a question for the 18th poster who is so lazy. I bet just reading my redundant sentence twice made everybody reading it unhappy. It is telling for said poster to then experience richeous indignation. Basically please keep enjoying vermicomposting. We will answer endless questions despite the answers being posted by us millions of times. But please stop confusing newbies. I am looking forward to your next post... in a month.

Hi Robert; I had a similar experience with epoxy and caulk. I was trying to recreate a $50- Bokashi bucket (wherein all the liquid drains out and none is left at the bottom). After 3 days the epoxy (specifically for gluing plastics) and the silicon caulk (which was rated as waterproof and resistant to most chemicals) became useless. I guess they tested it on everything else except Bokashi juice. The picture I posted is the inside of a Bokashi bucket which can be purchased online (usually around $30 to $50). The strainer (at the left) sits on that lip around the inside. At one end is a small square indentation where the liquid flows out. The round, white, piece is obviously the plastic nut which secures the spigot in place. The small square space under it seems to be; that just in case you would need to change the spigot, there would be enough room to turn the nut and remove it (and then replace it again). In the end, the only liquid remaining in the bucket, at any one time, seems to be about: 1/4"-1/2" (D) X 1"-1.5" (square). That's not very much liquid at all. Now, I have no problem installing a spigot at the very bottom of the 5 Gal buckets I use. The problem is that there needs to be room for the rubber washers and the nut to hold the spigot in place. In general, the bottom of the tube (where the liquid flows out through the spigot) is at least 1/2" off the floor. This means that the whole bottom of the bucket up to at least 1/2" is covered with liquid and then anything above that level is what flows out. This is far more than what there should be. One solution I've thought of (though I haven't yet been able to accomplish it) is to somehow raise the level of the floor to the level of the outlet tube. If anyone has any thoughts on this idea or any others, I'd appreciate it. Shaul

As for the project, I sit and watch, and watch some more, then mess with it a bit and watch even more. Still simple. I've moved to a two flow through system for larger and then smaller particulates since I do not pre chop food nor bedding of papergoods. I'll have to check in at pjames. If a process is familiar that is comforting because maybe I'm not on a useless track. I'm leaning towards not even sides. Or what many would consider sides. Like why do we need sides to bar air? Something like the orange snow fence would be good but not strong enough, plus the dealing with a tiny bit of fall out. But worms need air. And only on top is not enough. More air = more womrs. Maybe just adding air at the bottom is not enough. Why not 360 degrees? Some systems add air with tubes through the vermicompost. I'm not into tubes. Structual strength is again the issue with sides less than 100%. Some systems pump air into the vermicompost. I prefer less work. I have not yet been super sucessfull at convincing my vermicompost to fall out of the open bottom of the bin. I spend a lot of time poking at it and then putting it back on top of the same bin. Nor are my worms "friendly" with each other. No eggs or small worms since spring. Hard to be fruitful and multiply that way. I have a very small system. Are we bad for hijacking the thread? Some vermicomposters bury food in a circle and the worms travel around are capitalizing on the hurd thing? This would mean they are right. I am still surprised. I do know that when worms want to crawl out of the bottom of a flow through they seem to all want to do it like it is a thing to do. Jump into the abysis. They freely drop into nothingness. I'm pretty much a systems guy, with vermicomposting as part of the system of future rabbits, chickens... Aquaponics too. I walked into a pet store, have not been in one of them in 15 years due to raising human youngens, and get offered a free crayfish so it would not die in the feeder tank it came in with. Crayfish are possibly part of an aquaponics system that is not warm. Maybe they eat worms. It may be better accepted into my family than BSFL. I am working on the foundation of a system.