For those of you who watched my most recent Blooper video on composting you may have wondered if having flies come out of your worm bin is typical.
I have three answers to that question:
Answer (A): If you put too many kitchen scraps in your worm bin, and there are not enough worms to eat it quickly enough, then, the food rots and it attracts flies.
Answer (B): If you put food scraps in your worm bin and do not thoroughly cover the scraps with dirt the worms will not eat them (worms only like deep, cool, dark soil), the scraps will rot and flies will abound.
Answer (C)
A couple of weeks ago I bought a lovely salmon to can. I used up every part of the salmon that I could (well I guess I could have used the head for soup. The Inuit Eskimos do that. No thanks) and saved the remains wrapped in newspaper inside a plastic bag.
I was about to plant a small tree and wanted to use the salmon scraps for fertilizer. It was pouring rain and digging a big mud pit did not sound like fun. I decided I’d save the salmon vestiges until I was ready to plant. Rotting salmon remains were what I was going for anyway, so why not let it rot above ground while waiting out the weather?
Putrid, rotting salmon attracts all sorts of animals. Namely, my dog, who would love to roll in it or drag it around the yard and invite coyotes, raccoons and other wild animals (that might not feel like they had their full and go after my chickens) over for dinner.
I had a brilliant idea! I decided I would put it in the worm bin. It wasn’t going to mix with the dirt in the worm bin (worms don’t eat protein) as it was wrapped in newspaper and stuffed in a plastic bag and the worm bin is plastic so what could the harm be?
Well, it rained and rained and then rained some more and by the time I got out there to plant my little tree, my salmon was well on it’s way to becoming fertilizer. I dug my hole nice and deep so the dog wouldn’t dig up my tree to get to the salmon, and off I went to get my salmon from it’s secure hiding place.
I took a deep breath, plugged my nose and opened the bin. If you hadn’t already guessed, flies can get in very small holes, and maggots of course, hatch quickly. I was greeted by a swarm of flies.
I took out the salmon, dumped the remains in the hole along with the newspaper and quickly put the stinky bag in the outside garbage. I left the worm bin open to air out while I was finishing up the job. Unfortunately that didn’t quite do the trick. What you saw was a couple of weeks later. The maggots were still hatching!
To solve this little problem I simply shredded up newspaper, soaked it in some water and layered that with peat moss. A little wet newspaper, a little peat moss, a little more wet newspaper, a little more peat moss. This took care of the trick and all is well in worm bin world for now. Phew, crisis averted!
