Soo, the white [possibly oversized black soldier fly] larvae had disappeared the next day (almost more annoyingly than their ever having appeared!
)and I was beginning to think things are settling in the bin....I even saw a baby wiggler and took it as a sign to feed for the first time in 2 weeks.
When I went to do that though, I realized the bin contents (mainly just castings at the mo) have warmed up again
Not steaming, but hand warm
It's happening in this flowthrough worm bin system:
I took it over 2 weeks ago from a friend after it had gone badly anaerobic and her worms were dying in masses.
It was way too wet and the stench of rot was unbearable (she was only adding fruit & veggies, hardly any bedding) - so much so, that I gave up on the upper tray immediately and dumped it out into the garden, leaving me with the contents of the lower tray, pretty much composted, but also gone steamy hot (I thought it was because of the runoff from above).
I divided that up between 2 trays, which I lined and covered with dry leaves, and the bin cooled down & the worms stopped dying.
The only thing I did before today was sprinkle the top tray with some neem meal yesterday because a bunch of fungus gnats had appeared.
Could it be that the whole bin is warming up again just because of
that??
I decided to feed anyways, in the bottom -better smelling- tray where ALL the (surviving 20-30) worms are. I spread mush of previously frozen lettuce, kale, pears, and almond skins pancake style onto a spot, having filtered out some of the juice, as not to add too much water to the bin:
Then I covered everything up with cardboard scraps and put this tray on top.
The trays are so shallow you can't really layer much... just a bit in the topmost one...
So I'm getting the feeling I should actually dump the second tray out, as there are no worms in there and keeps leaning more towards the stinky side & "generating" bugs and stuff lol.
Is this sensible or am I thinking in way the wrong direction?
Cheers!