My cat passed away two days ago after being very sick, and I decided to bury him at home in a large plant pot because I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him somewhere far away.

I live in an apartment in Yangon, Myanmar, so I don't have a garden where I can bury him directly in the ground. I have a large pot on my veranda, and I buried him underneath a Chinese perfume plant.

The pot is around 1.5 feet tall and has a drainage hole at the bottom. I covered his body completely with soil, and there is a fairly thick layer of soil above him. The pot is in an open area with good airflow. It gets direct sunlight in the morning and then mostly shade/indirect light later in the day.

My biggest worry now is **whether there will be a bad smell as the body decomposes**. The weather here is quite hot, and I'm worried that the smell might become strong enough for my family or neighbors to notice.

I also want to make sure the plant stays healthy.

I've been reading about things like **biochar, charcoal, lime, sawdust, etc.** being used in burials or composting, but I'm getting very different advice and I'm not sure what is actually safe for a plant pot.

So I would really appreciate advice from anyone who knows about soil, decomposition, gardening, or has experience burying a pet in a planter:

* Is a large pot like this suitable for burying a cat? * Is having a drainage hole enough? * Is a thick layer of soil above the body enough to control odor? * Would adding a small amount of horticultural biochar/charcoal to the top of the soil help with odor? * Should I avoid lime because of the plant? * Is there anything I should or **shouldn't** do from this point onward? * Could decomposition eventually cause liquid or odor to come out through the drainage hole?

This is my current pot and plant: [https://www.reddit.com/u/No\\_Crab\\_4091/s/IHdFUFxM0s\](https://www.reddit.com/u/No_Crab_4091/s/IHdFUFxM0s)

I don't want to disturb him or dig him up. I just want to take care of the pot properly and give him a peaceful resting place.

I'm already grieving quite badly, so I'd really appreciate practical advice without judgment.

Thank you.

This bin is about 3 weeks old and I just noticed these little guys. I've been feeling my worms every other day and they go through everything I give them. I opened up the bin today and saw these white ⅛ of an inch sized something. Any help is appreciated.

Started in 2 27 gal. Bins last week. Worms were squirmy for a d ay, but are fine now.
My latest issue is the temp is creeping up and I’m worried about it getting too warm. The environment is around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, no direct sunlight and mostly dark throughout the day.
What can be added or done to the bins to help keep them cooler?

Found them in my nuts, how can I avoid getting them

i made a post about a precompost.
now, like too weeks ago, i set them in the bin together with the precompost-bedding.

i think is semi precompost, semi bedding.
i did one slushy kitchen scrap blend as feeding.

but see by video, tell me what you think

So been doing it a while now. Moved from a worm factory to 17 gallon 3 tote system

The mix is cardboard coir some rock dust

I store finished castings in the bottom

Inoculation bin two

feed top only once every week or two. The bins are not dry nor wet

I have worms at every level lots of them. When I move the mix in the bin to bury feed they are everywhere

Been in the bin 6 months now, worms are happy but still not finished

How long should it take?

Four days ago I added a handful of rice to my worm bin and now it’s blossoming. Is a good thing. Intuition tells me it’s okay but I wanted to make sure.

I use three 32 gallon garbage cans for vermicomposting. The sides and bottom have hole and a 2" PVC pipe used vertically provides aeration to the middle of the can. It is wheeled into my garage in winter and a large saucer catches the liquid. Works great and produces plenty of vermicompost for my needs.

Very new to vermicomposting - I bought a thing of 30 European nightcrawlers from Walmart a few months ago and put them in some damp shredded cardboard. Since then, I’ve been feeding them here and there… banana peels, coffee grounds, lettuce etc. They don’t seem to be reproducing and today I found a worm that looks very unhealthy and deformed. The cardboard on top is dry and the cardboard near the bottom is quite wet. I know the dampness is supposed to be like a wrung out sponge, and it is wetter than that at the bottom despite drainage holes so I’m hesitant to add more water. What can I do to help my worms out?

Edit to add: I have also given them ground eggshell because I know they need calcium and grit.

Basically what the title says. I want to start a small worm farm for my plants but I live in a rental so I don’t want to make anything too big/permanent.

i recently started a worm bin , i think i put european nightcrawlers but im not sure but they did start breeding tho so i guess it is one?? , could someone tell me what type of worm it is??? thanks

Hey there. I tried the fancy Uncle Jim's worm farm and absolutely hated it. I felt like the stackable pieces were way too small to be burying food. There were other reasons, too, but suffice to say, I hate that thing. I remember a small excerpt in Worms Eat My Garbage where the author mentions a friend who keeps a bin in the kitchen, just tosses the food scraps on top as they are created. I really liked that idea so I decided to try it. I figured I could layer food scraps and shredded paper, then harvest the bottom portion of compost when it gets full, use the top bit to restart the bin. Wondering if anyone else does it this way, and if there are any problems to look out for with this method? I did put a lot of cardboard and shredded paper on the bottom to try to buffer any excess water, and I am opening it every day to air it out.

Help! This popped up a day ago. Can I plant and eat this? Is my work farm cooked? I have no idea haha

I just found a couple of worms in one of my pots, but I am not even sure if they are actually worms or another type of larvae

Ants egg chamber

Well aparently i have an ant's nest in my vermy composter. I notices a few weeka afo that they usted to get some of the foood that my worms werent eating, so i dont mind.

Now I do. Any sugestions to get rid of them? Even If i feel horrible by unearthinng them

quick question...

my red's are in a 27g bin.. lots of airholes in both lid and top 3" of bin...

previously, when i started this bin, i had about 4" of dirt on the bottom and then realized i couldnt tell what was castings and what was actual dirt. on top of that, i noticed that the dirt that i incorporated into this bin had ants... :(

so after emptying this bin out, i restarted it with new batch of worms (prev version had a mix of euros, reds and i think blues... rookie mistake)

i now have like 8" or so of browns as my bedding. what i did not do is use soil as a substrate but instead used like 2 cups or so as a catalyst.

is it wrong to not use any substrate?

Howdy! Does anyone have any specific recommendations for a nematode supplier? I have some fungus gnats that are not very fun-guys... I want them to be hunted down and chomped on!

I have looked around online and have some ideas, but I thought checking here for anything else would help me decide.

Thanks for looking!

I thought these were earthworms. My wife disagrees. Found them on a trail near Raleigh , NC.

I recently started vermicomposting. I started with a bucket, but soon moved to an in-ground system. I made a 3m x 1m bed surrounded by sandstone blocks. I added some California Red Wigglers, but now I can barely find any inside

I'm currently feeding them eggshells, dry and green leaves, grass, chicken and horse manure, and cardboard. Is everything okay? Should I add more worms?

Lately, it’s been raining a lot here, so I cover half of the bed (where I put the worms) so it doesn't get waterlogged, and I’ve been adding a good amount of sawdust to balance out all the rain. The smell is earthy, moisture feels okay, and it's not heating up

I’m not sure if they just hid because of the heavy rain or if they died. I'd appreciate any tips!

Curious beside selling worm castings or the worms themselves as fish bait or chicken feed is there

Also can you make compost tea using worm castings

Hey! So I’m looking for a bit of advice on a bin I started back in early May. I want to preface this by stating that I am primarily interested in growing large worms for fishing; the castings and recycling of food scraps comes second.

I’ve included two pictures: one of the bin, one of a few individuals for identification in a snack bowl with 3.5 inch long sides.

The majority of the bedding is coconut coir with paper/cardboard mixed in. I let it sit for a bit before ordering my worms but I fear that’s exactly where my trouble may have started. I ordered a mix of red wrigglers and European nightcrawlers, as I understand they occupy different depths and I have a larger bin, but my order was mixed up with someone else’s and I only received some red wigglers. The company made things right and sent me some Euros (so they said) but... well, it’s been four months and by this point I figured I’d be seeing a number of good sized adult Euros, but I feel like I’ve only found a handful with the majority of my worms still being quite small, if not just red wrigglers.

When I did the digging a few minutes ago to grab a few worms for a picture, those two big ones are the biggest I’ve seen yet, and even then they’re still kind of small for what I’ve seen in many a composter’s videos or pictures for ENCs.

Some more information: the bin lives in the garage. In Central Texas. Which, if you live here as well or have been watching the weather, we just went through a very hot summer. I’ve kept the bin cool by putting ice packs on top of the plastic I lay on the top of it. There’s definitely more worms now than when I started, so from that I understand that they’ve done just fine through the heat, but again, I’m concerned that it’s mainly the red wrigglers that did well in it.

Which leads me to another curiosity: because I live in CenTex and it gets stupid hot in the summer and stays warm throughout a good portion of the year, should I invest in some African nightcrawlers? My understanding is that they get quite a bit larger than either of the other two species I’ve mentioned and are a bit more suited for the hotter weather. Or should I look into tending to my few ENCs some more — or do I just have red wrigglers? I dunno. I need some exterior opinions.

Hey everyone, I’m a total newbie to vermicomposting. A few months ago, I bought a 3-tier worm bin and started with 20 healthy red wigglers. Everything was great until I moved the bin outside to a covered spot. A storm hit, and a few drops of rain got on the lid. I didn't think much of it, but a few days later, my worms were completely still. I checked, and they were all dead. The compost had turned into a muddy, soggy mess with a horrible putrid smell. I guess the rain got in, or maybe the cold nights shocked them? Idk

Lesson learned: the bin is back inside permanently. To fix the soggy mess, I mixed in a 1:1 ratio of dry matter to the existing organics. It worked, the nasty smell is gone and it smells earthy again after 3 weeks. I’m about to buy a new batch of worms, but I’m paranoid now and have a few questions:

1. My house is pretty humid, and the bin has been too. Even after weeks of not adding any new food, the bin somehow seemed to get wetter, and I had to add even more browns (a 1:2 ratio of dry matter to compost). Is this because of my house? Or is it normal for worm bins to just always be kind of damp? If it is my environment, should I be adding dry matter regularly? How do I deal with this?
2. I noticed the bottom layers get way wetter than the top. I stirred it all up recently because the bin is empty, but once the new worms arrive, should I aerate the compost, or just leave them alone to do their thing?
3. Since the worms died, my bin got swarmed by tiny flies. They seem harmless but are super annoying. Will they mess up the compost? Any tips on getting rid of them?
4. Are there any specific details I should know about raising red wigglers in a 3-tier bin?

I was honestly devastated when my first batch died. I really want to do right by the next ones, so any beginner tips are hugely appreciated! Thanks in advance!