How long before worms start eating my kitchen waste?

RichardFrank

Have had worms little over one week and still have 1 half cup of lettucce layed on top of bedding. Worms seam active in bedding. Just not eating lettucce. I have 4-5 inches of shredded moist paper for bedding and they are inside house. Should I be doing something else?

pagres

I sugest burying food in bedding. I did to reduce fruit flies. It makes it rot faster and worms found food right away. Your worms are probably eating bedding until they find the good stuff.

HamiltonOrganics

If you want them to eat the food faster, put it through a food processor. They hacmve tiny mouths.

vogelvermiculture

I put some lettuce in my bins, too, and of all the food I've put in, it seems to be the least favorite for the worms. Also, the lettuce is not decomposing. It looks as fresh in there as it did two weeks ago. It was store-bought, 'conventional' lettuce, which makes me wonder if chemical or irradiation or something treated the lettuce for longevity. Years ago, when I worked in a bakery, we would get in flats of fresh strawberries. Once a flat got buried on a top shelf in the walk-in cooler. Months went by and we finally found it when reorganizing and cleaning the shelves. The berries looked as fresh as day one - no rot, no mold - scary to think what the growers did to keep those berries fresh.

The suggestion for using the food processor is a good one. The worms seem to like the slurry of compost I've been chopping in the processor.

Dee

Matthew

"The berries looked as fresh as day one - no rot, no mold"

Wow, that's incredible. Provably just a really clean environment and they strawberries must have been sterilized.

The lettuce may just still be living. The worms won't bother a living plant. It possible for some things to root and start to grow in a worm bin. Try freezing the lettuce first.

Believer

OK sort of a topic out side this subject, I'm 74 and just found out my worms have eye stalks, like snails,

guess you do learn something new every day.

Can you bury food in the bedding? Though that would be bad for worms gasses and such during break down of plant matter, Etc.

I am new at this farming worms, just got mine last month but seeing eggs already, no missing those big cocoons.

Harold Worm Farmer (believer)

:D

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