Quote Originally Posted by Dianyla View Post
I've only had a problem with fruit flies with citrus fruits, so eventually I just stopped adding those to my bin. However, I'm interested in the freezing technique... I hate not being able to compost everything.
(Burying them deeper didn't fix the problem for me.)
They say if you lay several inches of fresh dry shredded newspaper on the very TOP of the surface of the composting bed with the worms, it keeps most of the fruit flies from getting down in the damp food stuff to lay any eggs. Between that and the freezing should help.

My worms have not arrived yet, but any day now, certainly this week. Meanwhile, I keep a little open plastic box for kitchen scraps near the sink, and after two or three days i put the lid on and freeze it and start a new tub near the sink. Then I'll thaw the frozen scraps to room temp a batch at a time and bury them in the worm bin once it's set up.
I read that freezing food scraps and then thawing them helps 'break them down' right away to the stage where the worms will be able to eat them much more quickly than if they were just fresh scraps. That makes sense to me.

Quote Originally Posted by tulip View Post
Right now I have just a big pile of leaves (I have five mature oak trees in my yard) and my black composter. No problems with rodents here, but I did have a terrible problem with rats when I lived near DC. The only way to keep them away was to turn the pile every few days so they couldn't settle in. But that was hard to do with my work schedule. I would consider worms if I didn't have a yard.
I do have a yard, but I don't have that much yard debris to compost- mostly I've been frustrated as to 'recycling' kitchen food scraps. Here there are too many possums, skunks, racoons, dogs (and yes a few country rats too) to be putting food scraps into an outdoor bin. Those animals can pry their way into anything!
But I liked the idea of a worm bin...it seems much more efficient and elegant to handle our limited food scraps. I like the concept of letting the worms do the 'turning' of the compost. Besides, worm castings will be GREAT fertilizer for my tomatoes!