Long Island Gardening Community Resource

Today, I decided it was finally time to flip my compost pile. Maybe it was that nasty smell that was coming from it or maybe all the squash plants that were growing from it decided to die down enough so I could get close to it.

Anyway, as I dug in my spade, I got a shocking sight of what looked like endless piles of maggots, big ones!

After some reasearch on the net, I found an answer about these suckers.

It is almost certain that the grubs you’re seeing are the larvae of the Black soldier fly, (Hermetia ilucens), which is highly beneficial, carries no disease and will aid the breakdown process in your bin. The link below will take you to a post with a lot more detail. Though the post was originally directed to a person living in Australia, this fly species is common here as well, and the information is as relevant to the US as it is to the Aussies.

Link to the Forum

After finding out they are a purely beneficial fly species, I considered myself lucky I had them in my pile.