Melons are one of the few things that worms will swarm over right away, so they are not the fresh food to use to judge how quickly worms respond. If you use cabbage, it could be weeks.

As for the prerotting, yes lots of folks do it and in theory it should speed things up as most foods need to be rotting before the worms will eat it. In your case there might be a couple of issues.

One is you mention closed with a lid? If so then it's anerobic and will make a slop worms won't like. If it's fruit could even get some alcohol going.

Two, how sloppy is it? If it's really an ooze, it could very well be anerobic (even without a lid) and if added that way will stay so for a long time as the worms work from the outside in.

You could have some aeration to your prerotting bucket, some ventilation holes. You could also added some bedding to the bucket to help keep things from becomming too much of a slop, also when using the slop, mix in bedding to break the slop up so any worm unfriendly liquids get some air and can be removed naturally. Bently makes a mix like this and it's very successful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z4kdvY5b4Q
An example of the consistancy he's aiming for.

thanks. yea i noticed the worms don't eat the slop it's like ozzy with liquid. at least they won't eat it until a long time. i now started just freezing fresh scraps and using that instead this way i have no problems.

OK, one more time.... Maybe this time you will get the point.

You are pre-rotting your food in anaerobic conditions. Anaerobic rotting creates volatile organic compounds. Volatile organic compounds are toxic to worms. The will not eat the pre-rotted food until something happens to cause the volatile organic compounds to break down. That requires the food to be exposed to the air for a significant amount of time.

Pre-rotting is OK as long as it does not go anaerobic. It is not necessary. The best way to get food to rot is to place it in the bin.

Either that, or everything that has always been true about decomposition has changed in the last couple of months, and those of us with years of worm composting experience no longer know what we are talking about.

Celbrise, you are new at this. You haven't had your worms long enough to really get your bin established. Perhaps you should be learning from others instead of trying to teach.

Celbrise, please pay attention to sbryce's advice!

1. On your bin: you have to accept that it can take many months to get a new bin up to speed. During that time, you need to feed sparingly. I understand that you probably don't want to "waste" any of your food scraps now that you have a bin, but just toss them out. Wait. Chill.

2. On giving advice to other people. I don't want to be too hard on you, since it looks like you're a kid. And I respect your enthusiasm. But you have minimal practical experience, and you obviously don't understand the biology or chemistry of composting.

As a result you're giving people bad advice.

I waited until I had 18 months experience with worm bins before I began even gently chiming in on threads.

A forum like this is also an archive, and when you give a lot of bad advice, you diminish the quality of the archive. Please stop.

@sbryce i have taught people only the BASICS of vermiculture/vermicomposting. obviously they do not use my method of feeding. So you don't need to be rude about it. also ONLY reason i didn't pay attention to your advice LAST time was because you gave a half @ss answer stating it was anaerobic. When you decide to answer a serious question from people who is trying to learn how to properly do something you should also give a good answer of how it should be done. maybe you should learn instead of teach others?

also i have not given any bad advice. please link me a question that i answered that gave a bad advice too? i have given so many answers to basic questions on MY experiences. not 1 person below me said i had wrong information and their is at least 2 other posters or more. so clearly i am not giving any bad advice. if i don't know something i state idk if im correct or not. so like i said i have not given any bad advice. and yes these people have more experience then me.

seems like people in this "archive" is just plain rude. at least in ther vermicomposting and composting sections lmfao

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.

Celbrise,

My answer was not half assed. It was correct. It was correct all three times that I gave the same answer.

And, BTW, your answers to questions on this forum are almost always wrong. This forum used to be a great place to get information on the subject of vermicomposting. Now it is mostly the blind leading the blind. There is little value here anymore.

The reason people don't use your method of feeding is because it can kill your worms.

As far as answering questions based on your experience, you don't HAVE any experience on which to base an answer.

The people who really know the subject are no longer posting anywhere on line.

"This forum used to be a great place to get information on the subject of vermicomposting. Now it is mostly the blind leading the blind. There is little value here anymore."

Speaking as a "professional lurker", I beg to differ. I can always find something of interest here....and in other forums as well. With a bit of searching most of my curiosity can be satisfied. Other times a simple question post gets plenty of answers. Don't let overenthusiastic newbs get you upset. I was once told that newbies are much like little children in a swimming pool for the first time: they're so excited about their new experience that they feel compeled to splash everyone else, too. Ya just have to deal with 'em till they learn and calm down. But, I DO agree with you......people with limited experience on any subject should refrain from offering advice. I've seen this many times on every forum here: novices offer advice, someone more learned gives differing advice, and a pis.....um, spitting contest begins. Not good for anyone.

"As far as answering questions based on your experience, you don't HAVE any experience on which to base an answer."

"The people who really know the subject are no longer posting anywhere on line."...... And this is too bad....for everyone. Just hang in there, guy. Human nature being what it is, there's going to be more questions that need to be answered in the future. Probably more of the same, but still, someone around here who knows is still needed.

I hope this bad experience will not stop people like sbryce, equinoxequinox etc. answering serious questions here. I have always enjoyed and learned a lot from them.

Thanks, Aufin, but my experience is now mostly in the past tense. I gave my worms away months ago. I live in a one-bedroom apartment, and having them was a violation of my rental agreement. With fruit flies, fungus gnats and psuedo-scorpions infesting the room, my kids did not want to visit.

That's why I like the Worm Inn. I'm in an apartment, with freezing and that great lid, no gnat of fruit flies for two years.