Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Odor

The last time I watered my plants with mild wormfluid sollution I noted how bad it smelled. The soil then seemed to absorb the odor since I can't feel anything reeking around my plants - and I have a good sense of smell.

Vermicompost fluid doesn't pass through the worms all the time. Sometimes it pours directly from the kitchen waste into the tray for liquids, at that's why some of it smell bad. I keep the kitchen waste in an airtight tin on the sink before I put it in the compost. Since I only empty the tin about once in a week the scraps starts to break down. Things that breaks down with little oxygen smells bad.

So, what am I to do about it? Well, for a start I'll empty the tin more often, and in the long run I'll drill some extre holes in the vermicompost containers. You may remember that I found foul smelling food when I divided my compost into two some time ago, and I suspect the containers to be a bit to tight.

And I'll by a bokashi. I know I've been going on about this contrapition for a long time now, but I haven't bought one (too much month at the end of the money). If Santa is nice I'll be able to buy one on the evening the twentyfourth of december. If not I'll have to save up for a few months - and in the meantime be nit-picking about emptying the tin.

2 comments:

Missy said...

I stopped putting egg shells in my vermicompost because I felt like the lower level had a little eggshell stink. I have just seperated the two bins in the hopes that the lower one dries out a bit. For months I have waited for the lower worms to migrate upwards only to find them conferencing between the two levels.
The lower level is just a little too mucky but there are plenty of worms squooshing around in there, seemingly happy. In fact I am pretty sure more than a few of them have migrated south.
My pre compost is pretty stinky no matter what I do but, as you have noted here, the worms take care of that pretty quickly. I keep scraps in loosely closed jars and pour out any excess water when necessary.
http://mlk9293.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/pre-compost/
posted some picks

Anonymous said...

vermicompost is very bad