One of the less pleasant jobs that I completed today was checking on the status of the ongoing maggot war that all began when there was a disaster in the worm farm caused by the infamous green bottle fly and a piece of unidentified Christmas meat. After the hideous task of manual removal last week, that claimed the life of my new gardening gloves, I decided to see the current state of affairs. I hoped that the below was true for the worms.
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. – from “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon
Upon opening the Can’O'Worms I could tell from the smell that there were still maggots present in the system. I was expecting this as I was sure that I had not eliminated all of the scourge last week. I though was happy to see a number of worms attacking the decaying mangoes, peaches, and plums that were casualties of the recent warmth in Sydney. There were a lot of worms present on the top layer considering the inherent lack of material for them to live in. It would appear that not only have the worms withstood the invasion of the maggots, but indeed flourished and multiplied significantly in numbers. Below is a picture of the magnificent worms fleeing from the light.
I then thought that I best check the second layer. Again I was ecstatic to see nothing but worms tilling this layer. Just last week this layer was the most maggot infested of the three layers in the system, though that was moved around last week anyway. This layer looks to be very rich in nutrients and will be a great source of fresh planting materials very soon. A great result for the worms, however the stench was noticeably stronger.
After taking a few breaths and preparing myself for the likely sight on the next layer I checked it. To no great surprise I was greeted with a terrible rank stench and a cluster of horrid maggots wriggling around on the lowest layer. The image below shows these despicable critters doing nothing but gorge themselves on what would otherwise be good quality worm food.
On closer inspection though I saw that the worms were playing stockman and had corralled the maggots into a small area within the third layer. Worms truly are an amazing creature.
I have thus deployed the milk soaked bread trick once more. Basically the idea is that you soak bread in milk and once it is milk-logged place it in the worm farm. The maggots take to this like a fly to honey and in a few days you can easily remove them and elimate the problem. This trick gave me very limited success when deployed last week. I believe this was due to the large size the maggots were that prevented them from traversing through the system to the waiting trap. As such I have made it much simpler for my prey to be lured by placing the soaked bread directly onto the cluster of maggots.
So with luck in 2 to 3 days I should be able to easily eliminate the majority of the remaining maggots from the worm farm. If I can do that I shall claim victory and have a celebratory drink of a Little Creatures brewery product.
