Soldier Fly larvae
These soldier fly larvae are the busiest decomposer in our compost bin. They reduce our organic wastes pretty quickly.
The bin has a very balanced microecosystem. There are no flies, no smell, and plenty of helpful insects. If the bin starts to smell (this has happened once or twice in 3 years and was very mild) we add shredded postal mail wastes to bring balance to the carbon to nitrogen ratio. The bin should never smell like rotting food. It should smell just like dirt.
This bin diverts all of our kitchen wastes (except meats, citrus and oils) and some of our postal mail wastes from our sewage system and local landfill (Middle Point - Rutherford County) and puts it back into use for our vegetable gardening and landscaping.
Here’s an interesting blog dedicated to these bugs if you want to learn more.
Hi Christian, I’m Jerry from the blog you linked to. I enjoyed your post. I don’t know if you’re aware of it but black soldier fly larvae can easily consume the meats, dairy, citrus and oils you mentioned. If you don’t want to mix those items into the compost you can just throw them on top and the BSF larvae will process them quickly, as you know.
Since you already have BSF on your property you might want to consider a dedicated BSF unit. It’s great to have them in your compost bin but you can get maximum performance from them in a specialized container. You can also keep a colony of larvae working through the winter that way.
Jerry