Nom nom nom...worm poo!

We had a little bit of a mishap with the worm bin last week after I overfed the worms.  There was a dinner party here for a couple family birthdays, and I had a ton of leftover salad and squash.  It was fine for a couple weeks until one day I walked into the house and almost died.  After we scooped out the bin where I put the salad, the stench cleared up in a few hours.

That is, until I opened the bottom tray to see if it was finished today.  I found one leftover piece of squash that was well avoided by the worms.  It smelled like it had been anaerobic and didn't look like the worms actually at any of it at all.  I'm still not sure why, but we made sure to bury that nasty piece deep in an empty pot to decompose.  The rest of the compost in the tray looked decent, so it was dug into our lime and lemon planters.  I'm interested to see how the plants respond.  I even found a few worms already in the planters, and I'm not sure how they got there.

I'm thinking about doing an experiment this spring with some seedlings.  I'd seen some articles about the effect worm castings have on the root growth of plants.  For some reason, seedlings grown in a medium of at least some worm castings have a more robust root structure.  The better root structure would probably translate into better tolerance to drought, something especially important on our sun-baked patio.  I'll make sure to post pictures if I do!  Up next, a worm bin for my daughter's preschool class.