Of Worms and Flies

The fly’s keep coming.  I thought I took enough precautions to keep them out and away from an attractive environment, but they keep multiplying like crazy.  Small and red, flying, buzzing from one spot to another.  Fly’s why do you tease me so!

I got online to do a quick google search because the flies were enemy numero uno, insectus non grata, and if they persist to exist then my purposes of creating a urban farming experience in m parents backyard would be doomed.

As you may recall from my previous post this issue of the fly’s presence was a major procedural issue.  Without a clear indication that flies would not be present in any large numbers, I would get shut the heck down by my parents.  No compost, no organic garden material!

Turns out worms and flies have a whole lot of protein (genetic make-up) in common with each other according to Science Daily.

I found this Massachusetts government site useful.  I learned that the fruit fly’s have a keen- almost insane- ability to smell out banana peels and go after them for breeding purposes.  Banana peels, well we definitely consume lots of banana’s in this house and we most definitely dumped a crap of them in the compost bin!  Here is a DIY on the method described in this site:

Then there’s the scalding of flies.  That seemed pretty extreme but also problematic because pouring scalding hot water onto the compost heap might also kill the very worms and bacteria I am relying on to decompose the whole pile of things.  I think I will combine the method above from Massachusetts with this, because I am righteously vindictive right now.

The other thing I guess I can do better is put more brown material on top: newspapers, leaves, branches.  This would bury the veggie scraps further underneath that stuff so the smell radar on the flies doesn’t pick it up.  Besides that I just have taken to taking the compost heap and turning it all over itself so that the older material gets turned up to the top and mixed in with the newer scraps I put in there.

Also, if you’re into this compost business, I sort of stumbled on a third way, which supposedly is super faster then the two ways I have been trying- aerobic and vermicomposting- that uses the larvae of soldier flies.  Yeh, go check it for yourself here at steamy kitchen.