Take a look at page 13 of Raybo's Earthtainer construction guide linked below. He found that tomato roots getting into the reservoir caused problems, so he recommends using landscape fabric to prevent that. He says: Roots penetrated through the aeration holes and into the water reservoir. Cleanout was terrible, and the tomatoes had a bland, hydroponically grown taste. Now, that may not be what your problem was, but it's worth considering as a contributor to BER. I would also consider that your potting mix may have become saturated because there wasn't enough of an air space between the container bottom and the water. That could cause the roots to circle the outside of the mix in search of oxygen. Finally, I really think 5 gallons is not large enough for most tomatoes. I have been using 20- and 25-gallon fabric pots for my tomatoes. The roots seem to fill the container from center to edge. If you use larger pots, they really don't dry out as fast as people think. I generally only have to water every other day even with full grown tomatoes in a heat wave. My friend with Earthboxes (which hold 15 gallons) had to top them off with at least a gallon of water every day. He used less water than me but had to water twice as often. Here is a link that might be useful: Earthtainer Construction Guide

There is one other place I know of you are likely to read about composting animals. The humanure handbook website forum. It wasn't till I started humanure composting that I learned how to get a really good hot compost pile that would easily handle rotting carcass and control smell and other animals digging it up. So what have we composted. I really can't even count the bones and scraps of animals we have eaten since we always compost all food scraps that don't go to the chickens or worm bins. It is a firm rule here to avoid putting anything stinky in the trash can. So, animal bodies in our compost bin lately. 3 sick chickens we didn't want to make the rest of the flock sick. Any dead squirrels we find around the house. 12 rats we caugh And all fish parts that the chickens don't get, I've found that burying fish parts causes critters to dig up the yard or whatever plant I put over it so composting seems to be the best way for use to take care of it. I agree that this is an advanced composting thread. No one who is not confident of their ability to manage a hot compost pile should be putting dead bodies in it.

Hi jinaxire! More than likely the worms died of several causes. I'll list them in order. The new environment took a few likely. The cup of cooked oatmeal took lots of them (all the ones that had a chain fo beads look)(--0-0--o-0--) and so on(protein poisoning). Then the addition of too much food. The worms decay and dissapear quickly with mites and microbes feeding on them. They also stink strongly during this short decomposition period. The fresh scraps with only a few microbes on it may have taken a few (srarvation.) To rectify order new worms. Put in bin and let them go into coir bedding (use a light if needed). When all have gone down remove damaged worms and disguard as you did. Do NOT FEED UNTIL they are settled in (2-3 days). Then feed small chunked kitchen scraps .25 inch size. Remember your bin will have only a few microbes at this time. As the worms excreat their castings the microb population will grow. It will start processing the food making it ready for the worms. Let the microbes from the first bunch of worms stay in the bin. DO NOT CLEAN the bin. If you can start feeding the microbes before the new worms arrive only in very small amounts (jump start food processing for worms.) Worms are not really hard to keep as long as the changes they are exposed to are small and time consuming. Once you have gotten them started you will be more puzzled as to why the first ones died. Once established they are very resilient. larry

@Greatlakesmower, you are a genius! We had exactly the same problem, and it went on for years - a bad smell in a closet, that would come and go. There would be nothing for months or even a year and then, bam, dead animal smell again. I was up in the attic over the closet several times, and nothing. It happened again today and my wife thought to Google it and found your post. We realized that the smell isn't really dead animal (though it's close) - it's actually drywall patch compound that's getting heated up by the bulb! That stuff has a mild smell at room temperature, but it turns out when it gets hot, it's disgusting. We had a 100 watt incandescent bulb in the closet light fixture and swapped it out for a CFL. We're waiting for the smell to dissipate now, but we think our problem is solved, thank you!!!