I agree, compost harvest time is just like Christmas around our house. This time of year I start asking DH for compost and he starts sifting it for me. We have 8 large working bins out back of the garage. We use a sifter that is 2.5' x 3.5' with 1/2" hardware cloth screen. It sits high enough to roll the wheel barrow under it so it screens right into the tub. As fast as he screens it in Spring I can spread it in the garden beds. During Summer though, DH starts stockpiling it in 60 gallon barrels. Last summer he had 5 of them sitting out there lined up behind the bins. I think everything in the yard got a shot of compost last fall. Finished compost is a beautiful thing. I'm gonna put that on a t-shirt. Cheryl

Okay, so here's the whole procedure... I carry the totes out into the sunshine and let it sit for an hour or so (allowing the surface to heat up and dry out enough that the majority of the worms are inclined to go deeper) then I begin by scraping about a 1-2" layer off the top of each bin and putting that into the screened frame I have sitting on top of the wheel barrow. I then shift the castings around back and forth until most of what's going to pass through the 1/4" screen has done so... by then maybe 20-30 minutes has elapsed and I'm back to the first bin and I simply repeat the process perhaps another 7, 8, or 9 times to the point where I begin to run into much larger populations of escaping worms. Whenever the wheel barrow gets near filled I go dump it in the garden... this happens like three times for 90 gallons. Then I stop... put the bins back in the shade and add 4-6" of coco coir and top it with shredded paper and put the lids back on. Then I go inside and collapse for a few. That's the whole process... it takes up a goodly part of my day. I'll estimate I "lose" maybe 5-10% or so of the worm bin population to the garden in the process... a win-win for those worms and the garden plants wouldn't you think? Its only a broad guesstimate mind you but I likely have 4-5 lbs of worms in each bin to start with so whatever is lost is going to be good for the remaining population in their reduced post-harvest bedding volume and I assume they are to be quickly replaced... Think about this... I'll grab out a gob on occasion just to feed to my koi (if you dig around in a bin you can usually find a ball of pure worms without getting all the castings in-between, those are the ones I scoop up to feed to the fish... I limit it to usually no more than a hundred or so per feeding). I don't sweat the losses since each bin is so large and densely populated that their numbers are easily buffered by littler ones to absorb those losses. Remember because population growth is exponential its only the percentage of loss that one should focus on and not the actual count of individual worms lost in the process.

Here are the pictures of my first harvest. I ended up just scraping the top of the bin to fluff things up and dry it a bit. I noticed that the worms were burrowing down so I just scooped the top layer and minimized the number of worms I needed to sort out. There were lots of large worms as well as tiny little baby ones and tons of cocoons. This is the work area with my bin, some harvesting tools and a harvesting container. I split the bin in two areas using a cut up plastic tray. On one side I added new bedding and only feed there in hopes that the wormies will find their way there by themselves. The opposite side has the processed VC that I am working on harvesting. I figure it would take me a few days to get it all done. This is my bin after a few hours of harvest. Can you tell how much the new bedding area has increased in size? Can you see all the cocoons in the VC? I couldn't believe how small they were. I picked every single one of them as well as every tiny baby worm with a pair of chopsticks. This is sure a lot of work! I was planning on putting a couple more bins together since I have so many worms and way too much wormy food but how would you harvest multiple bins? Btw, I started this bin last Nov so this exercise was well overdue. Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and for checking out my pics! That was sure a lot of fun. :) Sandra

Peter2K, that's what I'm going to do, fill the whole bin with cardboard chips. I'm beginning to wonder if the only problem really IS water though. The bin was definitely anaerobic, but not that much worse than the previous 4 months. It could be that the harvest and sitting on a plastic bag started a cascade of bad, as you suggested. I also put in an "organic freshener" which had baking soda in it, right before the harvest. That was dumb of me, I was thinking 'hey, carbonate should be good", and forgot that sodium is Not so good. I saved a bunch of baggies of scraps and have them in the freezer, gonna thaw one out and put it in a corner with regular bedding before I fill with cardboard chips. 3DinAz, that was fascinating, I've printed your post out and am going to give it a try when I have more time to re-read. I'm betting the process reeks though! Lactobac is a very odd genus, they keep reclassifying species in and out of it and making whole new groupings. When I took plant pathology I think they said there were over 300 different species in the genus and it was difficult to even tell you had Lactobac because there are so many lactic-acid forming bacteria. I believe they are all anaerobic, in that they don't use oxygen to drive their metabolism, but are "air-tolerant" in that it won't kill them.