By Yvette
Henson, CSU Extension Agent, San Miguel Basin
Last year, my compost pile became infested with
pill bugs—what most of us call ‘roly poly’s’.
In the early spring, I like to add an inch or two of compost to my
raised beds in preparation for planting, I noticed a solid layer of all sizes
of pill bugs covering the top of my compost pile! I wish I had taken a photo but I wasn’t
thinking of documenting it at the time.
I did my best to remove that layer with my shovel and tossed them into
the woods. I went ahead and applied the
compost to my garden beds. Most
references tell us that these little arthropods don’t do much damage to our
plants—they simply munch on organic matter.
So, it makes sense they would be in a compost pile. There are other positive attributes to these
little buggers too. However, they ended
up thriving and multiplying in my beds, eating almost ALL of my carrots as soon
as they germinated and so I had to replant!
In my short mountain growing season, replanting was a real bummer (not
to mention the loss of the seeds)! I
spent quite a bit of time picking them out as I found them, luring and
‘trapping’ them under cardboard so I could toss them or squish them.
While this was somewhat satisfying as ‘revenge’
it didn’t amount to much reduction in population. They kept hidden and
multiplied in the crack between my soil line and the raised bed walls. Finally, I got and applied an organic granular
product containing spinosad that was somewhat effective. It was labeled for pill bug control.
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Pill bugs or’ roly polys’
Another insect I have seen in my compost pile are grubs! I saw these this year when I was adding partial compost to cover newly added food scraps. Beetle larvae are appropriately called ‘grubs’ and have a dark head, 6 legs near the head and they curl into C shape. Some grubs feed on plant roots so you don’t want to add them with your compost to your garden. Instead, screen them out of your compost pile when you find them. You can feed them to your chickens, if you have any, or leave them for wild birds. By the way, chickens don’t favor pill bugs for snacks.
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A ‘Grub’ ie beetle larvae
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You might see maggots, fly larvae, in your compost
pile if you add cooked or oily food or meat or some manures to your compost
pile. Too much nitrogen and water is a
good breeding ground for them too.
Maggots have a pointed head and no legs (see the photo below). Maggots are a good protein source for
chickens and birds. When they mature,
they will fly away. Besides not adding the above to your compost,
keeping it just damp enough, like a wrung out sponge, and burying kitchen waste
as you add it, will help prevent maggots from developing in your compost.
The best way to prevent or rid arthropod invaders
from your compost is to add a nitrogen source by layers to the compost as you
turn it. Keep the nitrogen in balance
with the dry brown carbon in your compost. Some nitrogen sources are fresh
grass clippings, alfalfa pellets, blood meal or some other fertilizer high in
Nitrogen. The way I ‘turn’ my pile is by
moving my compost from one bin or ‘pile’ to another. This puts what was on top on the bottom and
what was on bottom on top. The reason we
do this is to add oxygen and a food source (the nitrogen) for the microorganisms
that do the work of turning the waste into a great soil amendment. These microorganisms will heat the pile as
they feed and multiply. A temperature of
around 145 degrees F should kill most of the ‘critters’ and their eggs, plus it
will help your compost break down and ‘finish’ more quickly. Ideally you should turn your compost
whenever the temperature in the center of the pile gets below 70 degrees F, unless it is finished. Turning it once in the spring and once in the
fall is usually sufficient. Using a compost
thermometer to monitor temperature is a good idea and they are relatively
inexpensive.
For more information on composting in general see,
Sometimes we get other pests in our outdoor compost
piles and our indoor worm bins but I will save those for another blog, if there
is interest.
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