(UK) i,ve got flies in my compost bin, will i end up with maggots and if so what should i do?
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Answers:
It depends on what kind of flies you're talking about. Fruit fly maggots are very beneficial for breaking down compost.
Composting has to contain "green" and "brown" materials and a sufficient amount of moisture to be successful.
All my kitchen vegetable and fruit waste goes into our composters. This is the "green". It is cut up into small pieces to spped the process. Grass clippings contain too much nitrogen and take forever to decay. Also, no weeds go in.
The "brown" would be dead leaves from garden plants, autumn leaves, very small twigs blown off trees and a shovel full of dirt every now and then. Some keen members of our local horticultural club sprinkle lime in their bins.
The pile should be damp like a wrung out sponge. Most people do not give their compost enough to drink.
God blessed me with sons. It has always been their job to take a pitch fork and stir up the mass every now and then. This also accelerates the magical process of turning kitchen garbage into wonderful soil.
If you are composting correctly, even below freezing, there should be warmth in the middle.
I live near Toronto and have been successfully composting for more than 20 years in every kind of weather.
Of course you'll have maggots. Quit throwing kitchen scraps into your compost. Stick with things like leaves and grass clippings.
cover with a light layer of soil followed by 2-4 inches of brown material like leaves, straw or stripped up newspaper… they should take care of it ; )
oh, and bread (nor anything cooked) should be added to the compost bin... feed it to the birds or squirrels instead ;)
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