QUESTION: What do I do if I have maggots in my compost?
ANSWER: If you have maggots in your compost, there are several different options for what you can do. Maggots are the larvae of the black soldier fly. To keep flies from laying more larvae eggs in your compost, cover the ventilation holes on your compost bin with a fine wire mesh to keep flies out. To get rid of the maggots that are in your bin already, you can add a cup of lime for every 25 cubic feet of compost, or add pine needles or citrus fruit waste to your compost. Any of these additives will help get rid of the maggots in your compost pile.
To help create an environment that is less inviting to maggots in your compost heap, add more brown compostable materials to the mix. Adding more browns to your compost will dry it out some and lower the ratio of food matter available for them to feed on in the compost mixture. Alternatively, you could choose to just let the maggots stay in your compost. Though maggots are kinda gross, they are actually great for composting as they can consume and process lots of organic materials and turn them into usable compost very quickly.
The final product of maggot-made compost is sometimes slightly less appealing than regular compost, lacking the rich, earthy smell and appearing a bit off in comparison to compost without maggots. However, having maggots in your compost will speed up the decomposition process significantly, and their presence in your heap is completely harmless to the other beneficial insects and microbes present in your pile, or to the compost product itself.