Topic: compost question

[Kerry]

has anyone else had this happen?
i went to empty kitchen waste into the compost bin today and when i took off the lid there were absolutely loads of worms around the rim.
they were dark red worms, the type i normally get in there.
are they trying to get out?! what's going on?!
am i doing something wrong?
i put in garden waste, but not the tough stuff, old compost, and kitchen scraps, no cooked stuff. it gets watered too (mains, i should add!)......

[rdak]

seems like they are trying to escape an over acidic bin. Most kitchen waste is acidic and a build up will kill them. I would add some lime.

[derbex]

Ross's advice sounds good, chuck your egg shells on with the rest. The other thing might be that it's too wet.

Jeremy

P.S. Lucky man to have the worms move in, they ignore my compost bins at home -but like the ones at the allotment.

[Hugh_Jones]

This is quite common during the winter months when the main compost material is kitchen vegetable waste.
It`s too wet, so the worms have climbed up the side to escape it.  Kitchen refuse (vegetable waste, etc.) is usually wet and releases more water as it decomposes, so add a bit of shredded paper or dry soil to absorb it.  Wrap your vegetable peelings etc. in sheets of newspaper before you dump them.

Normal vegetable waste is NOT too acid for brandling worms (they are quite happy at pH levels well below 6, otherwise wormeries wouldn`t work), it normally has a pH of about 6.5, and the acid will not `build up` - however much of the same material you add the pH will remain at the same level. It should, therefore, not be at all necessary to add lime.

[kenkew]

Sounds like a damp problem to me.

[rdak]

Hugh,

Every wormery manufacturer, including the most well known, Wiggly Wigglers, advise adding lime to wormeries.

If you type 'wormery add lime' into google, it comes up with lots of supporting information, so that's the advice I follow.

However, if you get along fine without, then that's good, but I stopped liming for a while and the worm population dropped dramatically.

[Hugh_Jones]

Ross, I have never limed compost in the 60 or more years that I have been making it. My compost bins at this time of the year are fed entirely with the kitchen vegetable waste, the pH level remains at a constant 6.5 (I check it regularly), and the brandling worms thrive and multiply to the extent that I regularly extract and give away, every year, large numbers to acquaintances starting their own compost bins.

I would be extremely interested to hear the scientific basis on which it is stated that constantly adding material of roughly the same pH level can reduce that level and cause ` a build up of acid`.

The only occasions when the pH level has dropped as low as 6 in my compost are when I have purposely added pine leaf mould to one of the bins.  Even at this pH level the brandling worms have thrived.

The one thing that brandlings do not like is excess moisture in the compost, and they will then climb up the sides of the bins., which is what they have done in Kerry`s case

I would add that I, also, maintained a wormery for several years, and the instructions which were supplied with it made no mention of the addition of lime - it never received any and certainly it functioned very well without - but I eventually gave it away because the amount of fiddling about with it required was out of all proportion to the small quantity of compost produced compared with the 40 or more barrowlowloads each year from my brandling-rich wooden bins. My own experience of this wormery occasioned my reference to wormeries.

However, the original question was in reference to a compost bin, not a wormery. Composting without the use of lime is not just something which I `get along with`, it is what all all the many gardeners I know `get along with` very satisfactorily, including all the ones that I have supplied with brandlings in the past.  I would hate to think that anybody was most unnecessarily liming their compost bin when all that is required is a reduction in the moisture content

[Kerry]

P.S. Lucky man to have the worms move in, they ignore my compost bins at home -but like the ones at the allotment.

hey, i was definitely female last time i looked!!

thanks for your replies-it's given me some ideas. i think i shall give the bin an empty out, mix it up and add some stuff to help it dry out. i'll stop watering it so much in the colder months.

[Kerry]

well, prompted by your replies to empty the bin, i now have 4 bin bags of lovely compost.
always seems amazing that you can chuck in stuff that would otherwise go in the bin , do virtually nothing to it, and hey presto! (and free!)

[Andy H]

I wonder how many households that don`t grow veggies etc and just plants from the garden centres chuck out millions of tons of kitchen waste and then have to buy stuff  to condition their soil where they put the flowers! ::)