An Act of Mercy: I killed my worm bin

As a bit of a disclaimer: I'm not going to go into great detail about the specifics of composting methods.  This is strictly my experience and should not be taken as expert advice.  There's a lot of info out there about how to properly do this stuff.  

I have no regrets.  Worm bin composting can be tricky and high maintenance in spite of what its proponents say so if you fail as I did, take heart.  You are not alone.

It started out as a bit of an experiment.  The man and I were looking for ways to compost in our small apartment.  We tried a Bokashi bin but found it too small for the amount of organic waste we produced, and then we had to find somewhere to bury our unfinished pickled Bokashi bits.  For those of you not familiar with Bokashi composting, it's basically a process by which your food scraps are "pickled" using microbe infused bran.  It's fairly mess-free and non-stinky, but the bins are small and you need to do something with your bin contents to finish the whole process off.

So the Bokashi bin was out.  Would a worm bin be our solution?  It seemed easy enough.  A colleague donated some worms (red wrigglers to be specific) and assured me that it was a no fuss deal.  I did a little bit of reading (but not enough obviously), bought a medium sized plastic bin, drilled some holes, and went to town.  My worms seemed happy enough for a while but it didn't last.

Kill Justification #1: It just couldn't keep up

So, it turns out that you can't just feed your worms all of your scraps.  They can only eat so much.  I understood this.  The man, not so much.  We started slow, but after the population grew he kind of went a bit crazy and it wasn't long before things got stinky.  Our poor worms couldn't handle all of the stuff we were giving them and the whole thing had turned into a rotting mess.  Bad smells are a major sign that all things are not well in your worm bin.  It took months for the bin to recover and then once it did we were extremely paranoid about how much we put in it.  This resulted in us not putting very much in it at all so it wasn't very effective for us reducing our waste.

Kill Justification #2: Space and maintenance

Some internet research showed that not only was our bin being overfed, but it was also waaaay too wet.  Our bin had lots of air holes but no drainage holes on the bottom.  At the time I made the bin I was assured that I wouldn't need them.  That is wrong.  Our bin needed drainage - big time.  Veggies are mostly water so when the worms eat them they produce water as a by-product.  We tried to counteract the problem by adding more bedding more frequently but then our bin was just full of paper most of the time which didn't seem to be really effective.  

I thought about drilling some drainage holes but then shuddered at the thought of the logistics of caring for the resulting runoff inside our small apartment in the winter time.  All of this stuff sounds so easy in the summer but what happens when you live somewhere where there is snow on the ground for half the year?  

Kill Justification #3: Backyard Salvation

We moved to a house with room for a backyard compost bin.  End of story.  The worms couldn't compete with the convenience of having the composting process occur OUTSIDE where it kind of belongs.

Our new backyard compost bin

At the end of the day, I'm willing to admit I just wasn't dedicated enough to be a successful worm bin composter.  And I don't think I'm alone.  It was so frustrating to be an apartment dweller and not be able to compost but I don't think I'd try it again.  Green living still has to make sense for your life, right?  

I buried my worms in the garden of our new house.  I know they won't live to see spring but at least they will provide a healthy snack for the earthworms?