Remember that worms go after microbial rich substrate… usually mesophiles in most home systems that attach themselves to the food via polysacharrides, which are primarily responsible for breaking down the food.

The mesophilic reaction in your bin is what initially creates the heat everyone talks about and once the heating phase is over, the worms come in and consume (slurp up) the broken down food as it goes through the decomposition process.

There’s more science to it eg. microbes breaking down to form nitrogen & creating ammonia in a process called ammonification etc. but I won’t go into all of that here.

But this is why an established mature worm farm will perform much better with regards to demolishing food scraps. They are essentially a mini eco-system, which contains a lot more than just bedding, food and worms.

So, the first goal with a new worm farm is to build up the microbial population, which does happen naturally over time. This is done by feeding it a little bit at a time and then you’ll be able to continue feeding it more as time goes on when your farm becomes more actively established.

With that in mind, just be careful with overfeeding because the ammonia caused from excess nitrogen can kill off your worm population.

A good rule of thumb is to always err on the side of more bedding than food (because bedding also acts as a food source), add some buffer if required, keep the bedding damp (similar to a wrung out sponge) and you this will make it easier to keep your carbon / nitrogen levels in check and your worms happy. 😊👍