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How should I manage my worm bin so I can keep it inside the house in my kitchen?

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2 Answers 2

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Avoid sulfer rich foods in addition to the normal vermicomposting no-nos. The best way to prevent odor is to ensure adequate air circulation and proper hydration. Most odor comes as a consequence of too much moisture.

As for the fruit flies, you can try placing cups of vinegar in the bin, but this will probably only reduce the quantity of flies rather than eliminate them. Some kind of predator may work, but you're better off starting over.

  1. dump the bin
  2. pick out the worms
  3. wash them like you would a basket of root vegetables
  4. clean the bin thoroughly
  5. start composting again from scratch

You'll lose some worms to stress, but you'll ditch the flies, too.

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  • Thanks! Would you mind elaborating on you point about air circulation? Does this have to do with the choice of bedding?
    – DudeOnRock
    Feb 21, 2013 at 19:56
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    I once kept my worm bin in the cabinet under my sink. Standing at the sink to do dishes you would often get a whiff of something "off". I moved it to the open pantry floor and never smelled it again. When writing that I was thinking about concentration of noxious gases. But now that you mention it, keeping a sufficient aeration of the the "mix" will prevent some nasties in the first place.
    – OCDtech
    Feb 22, 2013 at 18:45
  • We recently moved our worm bin out of the kitchen and into the laundry room. I hadn't thought of using cups of vinegar inside the bin itself. Good idea
    – Noel
    Feb 26, 2013 at 16:56
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    A nice 3" hole drilled in the top of opposing sides and covered with a scap of nylon underhose does great to increase air circulation, but minimize reduction in bedding moisture.
    – OCDtech
    Feb 26, 2013 at 17:24
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With an indoor worm bin, we're very strict about just putting vegetable and fruit matter into the bin. Much of it comes from our juicing. This kind of matter doesn't put off much of a smell as long as we don't over feed the worms.

We learned how much our worms could eat by trial and error. It'll be obvious if they're getting too much food because they'll be hard to find. We have the five tray system so once once the last tray is full, the first tray is hungry again.

We put thick damp newspaper on top of the worm bin. This really helps avoid the fruit flies.

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