⏳ See exactly how close you are to your first harvest
Tell us how long your bin’s been running and how much you feed it — the bin below fills up live to show your progress toward harvest.
A rough weight of finished compost produced to date, based on a ~40% yield conversion — most of the original weight is lost as moisture during decomposition.
Your ongoing production rate once the bin is fully established — useful for planning how much compost you'll have available for future planting seasons.
Based on a typical 3-6 month timeline for a new bin with consistent feeding. Warmer, well-maintained bins often finish sooner than this estimate.
The cumulative weight of scraps your bin has taken in since it started — a nice number to track if you're curious how much waste you've diverted from landfill.
That's completely normal — most food scraps are mostly water, and a large portion evaporates during decomposition. A roughly 40% yield by weight is a realistic expectation, not a sign anything's wrong.
Look and smell, not just the calendar — finished castings are dark brown to black, crumbly, and smell like fresh soil. If you still see recognizable food scraps or it smells sour, give it more time regardless of what the estimate says.
The "migration method" is the least messy: push all the finished compost to one side of the bin, add fresh bedding and food only to the empty side, and within one to two weeks most of the worms will migrate over on their own, leaving the compost mostly worm-free to harvest.
Yes — worm activity and microbial decomposition both slow down significantly below 55°F (13°C). A bin kept in a heated indoor space can finish noticeably faster than one in an unheated garage over winter.
Absolutely — after harvesting, add fresh bedding back to whatever's left in the bin and resume your normal feeding schedule. The worms you didn't remove will keep the cycle going for your next batch.
Not seriously — slightly immature compost with a few unfinished bits is still safe to use in garden beds; just sift out any obvious uncomposted pieces and toss them back into the bin to keep breaking down.
