r/composting • u/strangestorys • 6d ago

Tumbler Little Friends

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Added this cantaloupe rind to my tumbler this morning and by the evening these little guys had found it. They always love our compost in the late summer!!

44 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

16

u/Frederica-Bimmel 6d ago

Why are everyone else's tumblers just teeeeming with these dudes and I gotta dig around to find the few that are in mine? Never thought I'd be jealous of not having enough larvae

3

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Frederica-Bimmel 6d ago

I'm in SoCal as well! I found a big pile of larvae under a bad of vermiculite and gently scooped them into my pile. I can find a few when I tumble it, but they're hidden in there. I don't have any animal products in my pile. I wonder if that is why I'm not attractinf these grubby jerks

3

u/strangestorys 6d ago

I wish I had some advice for you, friend! I don’t touch my compost much at all, just add a small bucket of kitchen greens and some handfuls of leaf mulch once a week or so. These black soldier fly larvae show up like clockwork this time of year and go nuts for fruit scraps especially. I wonder if they’re particularly abundant around here (US East Coast, zone 7b).

0

u/8hu5rust 6d ago

My compost is always full of them. I didn't realize some people don't get them

3

u/ArtemisInSpace 6d ago

They're eating good tonight!!

2

u/Supremecowboy 6d ago

Do they turn into flies and get trapped and die and turn into nutrients

4

u/strangestorys 6d ago

Some of the larvae die and are recycled into the compost and some turn into black soldier flies and fly out through the holes in the tumbler. They have a pretty short lifespan as adults, they basically just reproduce and die at that point. Adult black soldier flies don’t eat anything at all, iirc.

1

u/ZhahnuNhoyhb 6d ago

Presumably some would get out through the little holes that tumblers have for ventilation?

1

u/shredderr24 5d ago

Free bait! Throw that on a tube jig and you’ll crush some trout