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How to turn food waste into fertilizer in record time — with maggots
Black soldier fly larvae eating a pomegranate.
(
Laura Ingwell
/
Purdue University
)
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0:48
How's the fly larvae experiment going?
So far, it's been an impressive -- and gross -- alternative to traditional composting.
Topline:
For several weeks now, I’ve been using black soldier fly larvae to process my family’s food waste into fertilizer for my garden at a substantially faster clip than traditional composting might. So far, these maggots are both gross and impressive.
They’ll eat anything: Fruits, vegetables, compostable plastic bags and a rotisserie chicken carcass — which they destroyed in two days — are all fair game for the enthusiastic little larvae.
They’re changing: Now that it’s been about three weeks, they’re going from white and juicy to grey and stiff, as they start to pupate. Soon flies should emerge, mate and (hopefully) lay their eggs in a new container I’ve placed inside their screened-in enclosure. Then the goal is to harvest the fertilizer for my garden. That fertilizer’s made up of insect bodies and poop, and should have a nutrient profile similar to chicken manure.
Go deeper: Learn how to build your own black soldier fly food-waste-processing system, or read more about how it works.
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