Cathy... the "comments" you're referring to were not mine, please re-read more carefully, it was directly quoted verbatim from a website dedicated to neem oil... it was actually the first website that popped up on a yahoo search for neem oil. The following below is lifted verbatim from a website that manufacturers and sells neem cake... "The quality of the neem cake is determined by the amount of oil left in it, and also the process by which the extraction was done.... neem cake is used as good organic manure in agriculture and also acts as pest repellent. The high Azadirachtin content in neem cake helps in protecting the crops against parasitic nematodes and as best soil conditioner... It accelerates root development and overall plant growth and protects the plant from Nematodes and white ants." Judging from the grammatical syntax, my guess is this is an India-based company selling to an English-speaking customer base... and make no mistake, it is a sales pitch. The claims of this seller are that it is wonderful for the worms, however that is not the point I was making... again you must re-read more carefully, it is that a worm bin is an eco-system with many other inhabitants (far more numerous) than just worms. And like all eco-systems, work best when a stable balance among the inhabitants is maintained... and insecticides (yes, even enzymes that indiscriminantly target whole segments of the eco-system) tend to upset any balance which ultimately may not actually be good for the worms or the plants. I believe balance is key for the health of all in an ecosystem, be it plant, animal, or the soil that feeds us all. Think about it, if plants didn't have a natural resistance to diseases and insects then the plants would have gone extinct long ago... the fact that they are not proves there is some natural resistance that can be compromised when the plant is stressed (which is why the disease or insect has not died out completely either)... there it is again - it is about balance. I believe if your plants are plagued by insects then perhaps the best solutions may not be found through attempts at destroying the perceived villains but rather one should seek improving the health of the plant so its own resistance can ward off the attacks. It is just an opinion I shared and that is all. BTW, azadirachtin is just a neem plant-based chitinase (which is an enzyme that accelerates the breakdown of chitin)... there are other plant-based chitinases that come from other plant sources (some are from kelp), they just have other names for each of those other chitinase (enzymes). People are free to do as they wish but it would be nice if they would come back after experimenting and provide a report of their findings so that others may draw upon any knowledge gained, one way or the other. Perhaps you will come back in the future and report back on your experiences... I'm sure that would be appreciated. And good luck in finding your solution.

It's absolutely fine to compost material with powdery mildew. No need to waste resources microwaving or baking. PM needs a living host. Composted leaves are dead. Or you could just bury the affected plants.

Have you checked out the Worm Wig Wam? https://wormwigwam.com/ Or you could go with a large scale DIY like in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyDdGPCM6s4 after 25 min. into it. Sounds like you feed the worms an overwhelming amout of flour & flour product which generally are fed with caution. You might want to p/u waste/pulp from a juice bar to mix into your bakery waste. Just curious, why only 1/6 of your egg shells. I would keep all of it and use the residual heat of your oven to dry them for easy and safe storage. Heating makes them brittle and easier to grind into powder. Too much grain products usually make the bin sour and high risk for protein poisoming. How many worms/bathtub (estimated)?

@westes, thanks, I do get the point and the process. Hot composting definitely kills off more pathogens and bacteria. But worm composting also kills off pathogens. So does (aerobic) composting generally, even cold. The question is, how much remains and is it a problem? What types of pathogens? There are plenty of pathogens present in soil usually, but in numbers that don't represent a risk (depending on the specific risks of course and environment for them, etc). That's the point that vermifans make - done right, conditions are good for good microbes, bad for pathogens, and what remains is 'safe'. You may or may not find that convincing - my point is it's basically a balance of risks. If you're really concerned, go for the hot composted product. You're quite right that if you get vermicompost, you may not have a good idea of what was in there and whether you should be concerned about it. The 'protection' is that the vermicompost process doesn't lend itself to composting yard waste with the types of blights you'd be concerned about - but you're right, that's no guarantee unless you get reassurance about how it's made. There seems to be the impression sometimes that hot composting is akin to sterliization or pasteurization - I'm just pointing out that of course there are lots of bacteria and fungi that survive, and then after hot composting there is typically a cure period of a month or more - and of course that pile gets recolonized. Does that include 'pathogens'? Probably. Probably not enough to worry about. Probably not of the specific types you might be concerned about, like various yard blights. But it's by no means a sterile product. Come to think of it, perhaps pasteurization is a reasonable analogy - kills off most microbes but not all. At the first opportunity (temperature, exposure to air, etc), they'll be back. Even sterilized products will get recolonized very quickly. @annpat makes the point that hot composting kills off both beneficial fungi and bacteria, too - it's a good point. That beneficial aspect is part of what vermifans claim. I think some of those claims are a bit overdone, but fair perhaps to say that those who use vermicompost don't typically find pathogens to be a big problem.