Well it was bound to happen sooner or later but disaster has struck in the worm farm. The worms are not the only creatures in the compost, which is normal. However when checking various layers today I saw a pulsating mass of white. On closer inspection it was a group of horrible maggots all eating the compost. I felt physically ill upon seeing this and then decided to inspect other layers. I have found that each layer is laced with the horrible creatures. How did they get in there?
Picture Credit: Joseph Berger, United States, Bugwood.org (Creative Commons license terms)
Clearly, sometime over Christmas some meat that had been infected by one of the hundreds of green bottle flies that mysteriously appeared has been introduced to the worm farm. Unfortunately the ideal condition for the health of the worms is also a flies breeding ground. The maggots have now taken over. There is still a heap of worms in the system, but I must get the maggots out as I do not want to breed flies. I could think of nothing worse actually.
After performing some research I have found that the suggested technique is very straight forward. The removal of the maggots is performed by baiting them with bread soaked in milk and leaving it for 2-3 days. This apparently is a maggot magnet and will allow for their collection and removal from the farm. I will be throwing the maggots immediately in some boiling water, so the final disposal should be quite simple. But it is a pain in the backside. Given the numbers I may well be performing this task over the course of the next week or so. Needless to say I will be being much more vigilant in vetting what goes into the worm farm ecosystem.
Another suggestion is to dust the farm with lime. I will thus be getting some soon and adding it to the mix. I will though be careful to use this sparingly so as not to impact the quality of the produced vermicompost. If too much much lime is administered it will simply be passed straight to the compost. Not all plants appreciate lime, so it could have a negative impact, rather than the expected and required positive effects.
Some of the posts on blogs and forums from experienced vermiculturalists suggest to ignore the presence of the maggots. I though can not do that. I simply can not stand the thought of bringing the world even more flies than occur naturally. I must remove them.
Finally, the research also suggests that I am feeding my worm friends too much. At present I am sure this is correct as I do not have the commonly suggested 1000 worms per head of residents. Thus, I need more worms, and I need them soon. Unfortunately when I was last at the big kids toy shop Bunnings Warehouse they were out of stock. Yet had more Can’O'Worms farms than were able to be counted. Does not really make sense to have a heap of the farms but no worms in my opinion. I am sure that will soon be fixed. That said I am considering an alternative suppliers for the interim purchase to help clear the current plethora of available food. This will also deny the maggots of their food source.
I will post an update soon and let you know how I go.
