I have not seen any crawl out naturally yet. Not sure if something is wrong or they just aren’t big enough yet.
by Rymaa
I have not seen any crawl out naturally yet. Not sure if something is wrong or they just aren’t big enough yet.
by Rymaa
17 Comments
Looks wet and oxygen starved. Try to get it to a less saturated consistency with more browns, and maybe cut some holes for water draining and gas exchange.
That looks pretty soupy. You should aim to have your compost as damp as a wrung out sponge. I have compost tumblers and always wind up with plenty of BSF larva without doing anything special for them.
Black Soldier Flies aren’t really as great or ideal as some on here like to act. I mean don’t get me wrong, they’ll speed things up and aren’t a deal breaker by any means, but they’re generally a sign that your compost is too green heavy (which yours is by a lot) and they also eat some of the nutrients that are beneficial for your compost. Perfect compost won’t have black soldier flies. It’s like the difference between a t bone steak and a McDonald’s cheeseburger. They’ll both feed you, but one is clearly better than the other.
To me, I would rather be brown heavy than green heavy. It’s easier to start off way brown heavy and then adjust as I go along, than the other way around.
anaerobic as hell. how bad does that smell when you turn it?
New here, what are black soldier fly larvae useful for? You just want them in the compost or do you harvest them for something?
Honestly a little soupy
Look like 🫐🍓💩
All the magots are fly away nitrogen.
You’re definitely suffocating them in all that liquid. They like it only slightly wetter than compost should be. This is **way too wet.**
I can smell this picture.
I’m a big fan of lazy compost with BSFL so this looks about like what I’d expect if you want them by the handful. I had a bin outside that I was intentionally trying out very greens heavy with lots of BSFL. It stunk but man it was pretty cool having all kinds of wild birds come by just to eat the larvae out of that bin. I had a wild turkey coming by for it, she raised two chicks off that bin lol.
stimky
It looks anaerobic and way too soggy. I would add leaves or straw or whatever you have that will fluff and oxygenate it. Then stop adding water until it doesn’t look like mud on the bank of an estuary.
It will be soil eventually but your neighbors will hate you for a couple years.
That’s mud brother
Far too wet. Deeded drainage a long time ago.
Looks like the trash compactor scene from Star Wars
This looks like it smells heinous.