I finally found a worm bin setup that doesn't stink after 3 months

I picked up a Worm Factory 360 at the hardware store in Portland last spring and set it up in my laundry closet. The first two weeks were great, then the smell hit hard like rotten vegetables. I almost gave up until a guy at the local gardening meetup told me to add more shredded newspaper and stop overfeeding. I cut back to feeding them once every 5 days instead of every other day and layered in dry leaves. Now it just smells like damp paper and I haven't had fruit flies in 6 weeks. Has anyone else had luck with layering browns deeper than the instructions say?

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leow903mo ago

Totally agree on layering browns deeper than they say. I read somewhere that worms actually need that extra carbon layer to breathe and it stops them from getting stressed out by too much nitrogen. I tried it after watching a video from a vermicomposting guy on YouTube - he said to pack in shredded cardboard like double what the manual recommends. My bin went from smelling like a swamp to just earthy and damp inside two weeks. The fruit flies disappeared too once I stopped burying food so close to the surface. Idk why the instructions are so conservative with browns, it feels like common sense once you see how the worms react.

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maryh963mo ago

Did you start with the moisture level in the bottom tray or just focus on the top layers?

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