Question from Siddhu.
I'm new to worm compost.
When I started a few weeks ago,
I added too much of green waste in my compost bin, airtight.
This resulted in maggots spreading rapidly
all over the compost.
Now I have no choice but to dry the soil
before using it for my garden.
I also heard that waste composted by maggots
have a lot of pathogens so adding this to my garden
will also increase pathogens to the soil.
Is my only solution to dry the soil?
We live in the city and not allowed to raise the chickens.
Right, I'm adding as many
dry leaves as I can to compensate,
But it can only see,
I can already see small house flies on the veranda daily.
Well, you've only got meat maggots
if you put meat in your worm compost.
If it's come from green materials, fruit,
and vegetable scraps, they're black soldier fly larvae.
Now black soldier fly larvae
are these tiny little black wasps,
they look like very small flies,
but they have a very big maggot.
And the maggot grows very quickly
and and actually decomposes the organic matter of fruit
and vegetables faster than worms
but the manure of the black soldier fly larvae
is edible for worms.
It's not a problem.
All right it looks pretty gross at times
when you see black soldier fly larvae
all the way through your worm worm farm
but they're actually not doing much harm.
They're more oval than a meat maggot.
So you're not going to get meat maggots
unless you put meat or fish into your worm farm.
Fruit and vegetable flies...
Fruit vegetables will attract black soldier fly larvae
but only at warm times of the year.
Not if you've got a cold climate when it gets cooler
you won't get them.
So you shouldn't have to dry anything out.
But you may have mixed the layers
in a way that's made it a little bit more awkward.
What we do with these big bath worm farms,
is we put at least half to three-quarters
with cow or horse manure first.
That gives you a base of food for the worms
that's their main food reserve
and then we put the fruit and vegetable scraps on top.
And then we water through it and get this nice juice.
Now, by setting it up that way
it really will stay there for up to three months.
And when it's finished the layer on the bottom.
This is all worms here.
Eventually the bottom is not like...
It's all kinds of material in here.
This brown material, this material is processed
cow manure or horse manure that we've put in at the bottom.
So. And I'm mixing it a little bit
with the other materials by doing this
but that brown stuff there, that's the worm castings.
That's the fertilizer there.
And it's quite sticky, it's not like compost.
It's got more gel factor in it.
So although this, this is still quite active
and it's got a little bit of a way to go,
this puggy material is the solid fertilizer you're after.
Don't worry so much about those flies
giving you those maggots
don't put too much in there that will attract them...
Without a cover.
So cover it, don't worry if you get too many maggots
'cause they're probably not meat Maggots.
If you're not putting meat and fish
in there it's not meat maggots,
it's black soldier fly larvae.
And their manure is also feeding the worms.
They actually pupate in the ground
and they're going to naturally occur if you've got it open
and you've got a lot of attractive materials there.
So we've covered it up,
you're going to get less black soldier fly larvae.
I usually like a cover that the rain comes through
or you can water through the cover
and get that nice liquid fertilizer regularly
out the bottom here, this brown material,
brown liquid here is a good liquid fertilizer
you can constantly use.
And you're waiting three months to reset your worm farm
and get all that solid material out the bottom.