I live in a condo with a balcony so NatureMill was the only option I was willing to consider. At first I kept it indoors. It is odourless when the lid is closed, but there is a strong organic mushroom/sourdour odour when you open the lid to add more stuff in. It's not overly unpleasant but I'm very sensitive to smells so I moved the NatureMill to the balcony (thankfully, I have a power outlet outside). Yes, the machine can be finicky but if you FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS, it works fine. I'll admit that I burned through my first machine by not doing so - NatureMill sent me a replacement. My new moto: Nothing stringy, only 1 inch pieces of stuff (my scissors are now very active! much better than using a knife to chop things up), don't overload. If it's too wet or smells sour, I add more pet pine litter or cross-shredded newspapers and baking soda. Above all else - being patient helps. There were times when I was tinkering the inside of the mixing chamber with a screw driver and a knife trying to free up a jam, instead of waiting forty-eight hours like the instructions advised - that wasn't a good idea and contributed to my first machine's demise. If you stick to the motto, you shouldn't be getting jams. I love it when the organic waste gets cooking and really steams up! I've been using the NatureMill Pro for a few months now. We do a lot of cooking using fresh veg and eat lots of fruits so we generate a large amount of organic waste. Add to that coffee grinds and egg shells. In fact, for just two people, I find that my NatureMill is not fast enough to process the organic non-meat waste we generate. The waste from eating just one watermelon or a couple of cantalopes will keep the machine busy for at least a week. In the meantime, I generate several small bags of organic waste waiting to be processed! So I get backlogged regularly. In two months I have generated 3 trays of compost and will have a fourth in a couple of days. It's rich, black and looks like a nice soil. There is one full tray in the machine being heat-cured, and I have the contents from two trays sitting in planters on the balcony being air-cured. I intend to air-cure the compost for at least two weeks before I put it on top of my growing suger snaps and tomato plants. I can comfortable say that I've reduced my landfill waste by around 70% since I bought the NatureMill. As for the future, I'm going to add small chopped up pieces of corn cob and used kleenex tissues next.

Vermicompost is supposed to improve plant immunity to disease and stress even more than hot compost. Hot compost's primary advantage as far as I'm concerned is the ability to destroy weed seeds. Re: pathogens, there are some reputable studies that would seem to indicate that vermicomposting can be as effective as hot composting, but it's a lot easier to confirm the necessary conditions in a hot pile as opposed to a wormery. Vermicompost can't be used as a sole-source seeding medium, as it actually deters seed viability at full strength; however, adding some percentage of finished vermicompost to a prepared seeding medium increases sprouting and reduces damp-off--I want to say @10%, but don't have that citation at hand, sorry. Numbers only stick in my head if they're relevant to me, and I don't do much with "pure" composts of any sort, but let all the micro- and macro-digesters play. DSF

thank you for your thoughts. im just desperate to try something, because the old bucket thing hasnt been working too well. yes, i have a nice pallet composter out back. i took a course on composting quite a few years back that the province was giving. it turned out to be this intense 40 hour thing, but i really did learn alot. what bothered me was the toxic run off they spoke of. that all that wonderful organic material would mix up with just a little bit of battery acid or mr kleen or something toxic and the whole darn thing would become toxic. that really bothered me, thus, i worry about every crumb and drop. i know there are simple ways to do things and complex ways to do things. i know there are cheap ways and expensive ways. some people drive beaters some driver beemers - its personal. im so tired of the mess and critters and with a new reno i want to do something drastic to change the messy and dirty way we were collecting our compost. the 5 gallon kitty litter pail just isnt working for us. worms. yes, i have a gazillion red wigglers in my pallot pile outside. every fall i bring a handful in and keep them through the winter. (just incase something kills them off over the winter i will have a big plate full of them again in spring) one year in the handful i had mosquito larvie and we had skits hatching all year! my small worm bin sure wasnt enough for our family, though i have seen the worm bins available for larger applications. i guess i have just been thinking of something really simple and easy and ... i dont know just easy, it seems like life is just going crazy this summer and i need simple in my life. again, thanks so much for your imput, i do love this site and i have learned so much over the years. even though i havent posted much in the past few years, i do lurk and see what folks are saying.

I'm very skeptical that anyone sells pure worm castings. I define a casting as a particle that has actually passed through the digestive tract of a worm. Vermicompost or worm compost is a much more accurate description of what is probably in the bag. Your homegrown VC is probably different from stuff you buy for a number of reasons. I can't remember which forum this came from, but it was posted by: Kelly Slocum On: 2001-09-01. "the feedstocks chosen for producing maximum worm biomass are not always those chosen to produce the best castings for a particular situation, no. keep in mind that castings value is determined largely by the intended end use. if you want the castings to amend your soil for planting a fruit orchard, for instance, the castings you'd most want would be dominated by microscopic fungi, supported in castings produced by a feedstock with a high proportion of carbon material (leaves, wood, paper, cardboard, etc.). were you looking for castings with which to amend soil that will be growing annual flowers the product with the highest value to you would be dominated by bacteria. bacterial castings are produced with feedstocks higher in nitrogen (greenwastes, manures, etc.). castings that have the most generally diverse community of organisms possible are generated from feedstocks with a particular balance of carbon and nitrogen bearing materials. now, studies show that, provided appropriate moisture and aeration are maintained, manure is the material that produces the greatest worm biomass. manure alone is not going to produce castings with the most diverse numbe of organisms, however, needed for a high qualtiy general purpose product." Note the tacit implication that NPK is not what makes VC a valuable soil amendment. Search "soil food web" and you'll have plenty of reading material. Cheers, Andrew