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Re: Compost Horror

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html


     Hi Julianne,
     
     How big are the horrors? Like hills of ants? Are they largish white 
     grubs (pinkie finger size)? My experience with compost is that most 
     bugs and larva are not killed (my compost doesn't get extremely hot), 
     and that some of these horrors are actually good for the pile, because 
     they eat stuff (just like earthworms), digest it, and leave behind the 
     really good composted nutrients. You are right, don't use any 
     insecticide. If they are not really bad bugs, they will thrive, eat 
     the stuff, make compost, then go away. The white grubs we get are the 
     larva of the June beetle (smaller brown cousin of the Japanese fig 
     beetle). They don't do that much damage in the veg garden when they 
     hatch, though they are a pain to keep out of the house. They also live 
     in the St. Augustine grass thatch, so it would do me no good to get 
     rid of them from the compost pile.
     
     let us know what color, size, etc.
     Shawn
     swestaway@smtplink.coh.org
     Claremont, Ca  USDA9b sunset19


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Compost Horror 
Author:  "Julianne Wiley" <jlw@planetc.com>  at INTERNET
Date:    10/14/98 11:15 AM


Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
     
Dear friends,
     
Thre must be something terribly wrong with my compost, and I hope you can 
help me.
     
I have a nice composter:  It's a kind of well-insulated redwood half-barrel 
with dirt and crumbly black peat on the bottom, and a plastic dome that goes 
on the top to conserve heat and moisure (greenhouse effect.)  I'd been 
putting in lots of crushed dry leaves as well as a modest amount of kitchen 
scraps, keeping it a bit moist, stirring it up regularly for aereation, and 
admiring how nicely it was heating and how quickly the leaves were 
"disappearing."
     
Now all of a sudden it is crawling with a horrible life-form of some kind. 
It's not worms, or wood-slugs, or wood-fleas or even maggots (I know them 
when I see them) but clumps of hundredfold-wriggling things, so many and so 
squimy it looks like something from a horror movie.
     
My guess is that it's the larva of something I do NOT (!) even want to see 
the adult form of.
     
I thought, "It's just not gettting hot enough in there anymore" so I added 
a commercial compost-heater-upper which contains the right kind of 
microbiostuff plus high-nitro nutrient ingredients like peanut meal.
Some of it I poured right onto the ---ugh!  horrible squirm-clumps!--- then 
added crushed leaves and water, and stirred a lot.
     
That seemed to help some, but there's still a LOT of survivors.
     
I thought compost piles were supposed to get hot enough to kill insects and 
insect eggs.
     
What am I doing wrong?  I don't want to use an insecticide, of all things! 
Help!
     
Julianne the Squeamish
     
     
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