I've composted small amounts of dairy with no problems, but I do question how long some of those things would take to completely break down. Wood chips, tree bark, and cattail reeds, depending on the size could take awhile, as could leather items. Since I only occasionally hot compost I'd not use many of those things. I question whether Ivory soap is a completely natural product so I know I wouldn't compost it. I wouldn't bother composting peat moss either but would mix it with the finished compost if I needed to use it up. I'd also be careful to not add too much wood ash or minerals as they don't decompose and could alter the pH and cause an imbalance that's difficult to restore. In a good hot compost everything else on that list would decompose fairly quickly tho - except maybe those little olive pits. Warning - wedding bouquets are composed of more than organic materials, they have wires and plastic stuff also so one should gleefully rip it apart to remove those things OR ceremonially burn/trash it if it no longer has sentimental value! ;-D

Esmé, If I understand you correctly, your bin was half full of scraps before adding the worms ? It sounds like your bin is indeed composting by the sounds of it and having the worms in a hot bin like that is not ideal for your new residents. The heat from the composting process is driving off you moisture at least on the top. I would suggest to recue the worms from the bin while still possible then remove most of the hot composting materials and read the below post from our worm GURU Kelly. TC Posted by: Kelly_Slocum sw WA state (My Page) on Thu, Jun 2, 05 at 9:23 Many of the suggestions you read on how much a worm can eat and how much the bin can/should be fed are misinterpretations of recommendations that come from Mary Appelhof's book "Worms Eat My Garbage". Many of these recommendations were not based on scientific research, but were generalizations Mary had to make to aid a public demanding answers that science had not yet found or about which could not make general statements. As such, she intended them as guidelines to aid people in beginning a bin, as she recognized better than almost anyone that how much a worm can eat depends on the character of the feedstock, the environment, etc, etc. The internet turned Mary's generalized guidelines into "facts" and "rules" for worm behavior and worm bin management, however, and have now become so overstated as to be incorrect. When beginning a new bin, following the guideline that the system will process a weight of feedstock roughly equal to the weight of worms for the first week or two is a reasonable expectation. As the system matures, however, it will be able to process more and more, dependant, of course on the character of the feedstock and the environment. The wise vermicomposter will feed their bin not based on the suggested feeding rates found in a book, but on their own observations of how quickly their system is managing new feedstock additions. Each time the worms move into a new addition of feedstock this should be an indication that more feedstock can be added. The first feedstock does not have to be fully processed, it simply has to have worms actively working in it, indicating that it is sufficiently biologically active to be available to them. Adding new feedstock at this point gives the new stuff sufficient time to become biologically active while the previous addition of feedstock is being processed. The average healthy home worm bin supports about 1.5 pounds of worms per square foot of bin surface area on the average. The most populous vermicomposting system every documented supported roughly 4 pounds of worms per square foot of bin surface area, but that population density could not be sustained indefinitely. Don't get too caught up in the question of "how many worms are possible in the bin?" or "how many worms should my bin hold?" as the worms will populate based on the amount of available food and space. Put some worms in the bin (hell, you could begin with just two, or, believe it or not, even ONE, and end up with a maxed out population in several months), keep it moist, add some feedstock and they will make more worms for you at just the right speed and to just the right population level for the system as you are managing it. As to recommendations to add "decomposing material", that is exactly what you are adding when you put feedstock in the bin. Some folks suggest "pre-composting" the feedstock before adding it to the system, but I have to wonder what they perceive is the advantage to pre-composting it in a bucket separate from the bin over simply allowing it "pre-compost" IN the bin where there is massive biology to aid in the process. Sometimes the suggestion to add "decomposing material" refers to the use of compost or worm castings as a part of the bedding in a new bin to ensure the system has a relatively high level of biology at the outset, and this is actually good advice, though is certainly not a requirement. Compost in the bedding often helps the worms settle into the new environment more quickly than they would in a bin full of shredded paper and kitchen scraps alone. I know, I know, this is another of my long-winded posts, but the answers require some explanation if what we want is a truly educated vermicomposting public! I am working on brevity (you should have seen this post before I edited it!), so please be patient with me; brevity is not a general part of my nature and at 43 changing takes some time! Let me know if you have more question, Robin, or if any of this needs further explanation! Kelly S· Posted by: Kelly_Slocum sw WA state (My Page) on Thu, Jun 2, 05 at 12:59How to determine when the bin is ready to "harvest" depends on whether you are pocket feeding or top feeding. If you are pocket feeding then it's time to harvest when essentially all of the bedding has been converted to castings and is no longer recognizable, and the bin volume has decreased by roughly half. Top-fed bins are harvested when the bin is filled all the way to the top. Time to harvest is usually shorter in pocket-fed bins than in top-fed systems, and (surprise!) is widely variable, dependant on bin size, how much the system is fed, environmental conditions, feedstock, blah, blah, blah, blah. You've got a better grasp of this than you credit yourself with, Robin, if your questions are any indication. You are asking the right ones, have clearly not bought in to everything you read on the internet, and are thinking critically. Fascination and common sense are the only real prerequisites for effective vermicomposting on the part of the human involved, and you appear to have these in fine measure! Kelly S

YES! I do this all the time with Mesophilic yogurts, Viili or filmjolk, though. Room temperature yogurts can handle standing on the counter much longer, so you may need to play with the salt in you case. Not sure? If you use an incubator or a yogurt maker, you do not have a meso yogurt. First off, by making greek style yogurt, you saved yourself a ton of time. If your culture sets at room temp, perfect! If not, don't fret. You won't need an incubator and you do not need to cook and babysit. No brine either, just patience. To Do: add animal rennet and a little salt to your strained yogurt stir strain it some more in a t-shirt for about a day pack into a salted container and put in the fridge wait about 3 months to a few years. My oldest so far is 3 years and trust me, it is not a slicing cheese--more like an industrial coffee grinder! ha. Eat it up If you see mold at any point, it is fine. Pour off more liquid and add a little more salt in the container. The mold in my house that settles in my viili pot is a grayish color and adds a stronger flavor. It gives me two cheese flavors from the same yogurt. Mold is pretty nice (FREE) stuff when it lands in cheese. Personally, I'd die before I buy cheese molds. It is one more beautiful thing that makes home home, and your cheese unlike any other city's cheese. You breathe it in everyday, so it is already a small part of you. Take a deep breath, and make some cheese. (-;

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really see the difference between glass and plastic containers because the lids are all plastic anyway, including the lids of my glass containers. wintercat: I have always wanted some glass containers, but they are so expensive that I have never gotten any. I believe the difference is only that the container is glass and reheating something in it will not extract plastic residue since it is glass and presumably the lid is removed. I already had a couple of those old Corning Ware mini pans (and just found three more) to use for reheating small portions. Originally I had some plastic lids for them, but they were already long gone. Perhaps some will fall into my hands some day. Until then, I just use Saran Wrap or aluminum foil for storage. "The gaskets are of a hollow core and the OD of them are very them" What does this mean? olychick: my initial assumption (still held) is that a1an is a touch typist and meant to type 'very thin' and made a duel typo into 'very them'. Admittedly, I didn't originally see that it was an 'm' rather than the 'n' that I imagined was there, but I have often found myself typing a character from the same finger but wrong hand, and have done the 'm/n' thing as well.