compost - fruit flies

molesworth

Hope I have the right place for this.

We started a compost bin a couple of months ago. Very satisfying! But we are now starting to get lots of fruit flies and it's not even summer yet. We have a small garden so the bin has to be near our house and - worse still - our neighbours. We don't want to be responsible for a plague of flies in the neighbourhood. Is there anything we can do?

Debt_Free_Chick

We probably need to have some more information about the contents of your compost bin, but I would guess you have too much kitchen waste in there. You need to mix in other things. Have you added grass clippings? And some shredded newspaper and cardboard like egg boxes or loo roll inners? Some woody clippings might help too.

There's a great article here about building a balanced compost heap

thriftlady_2

I've just taken delivery of my new council subsidised compost bin (it is enormous) so thanks to whoever provided the link about these - sorry can't remember who it was.

I've already got a lot of fruit waste,so thanks for the tip Debt Free Chick :T
I've been putting the loo roll tubes in the paper recycling bag,but now they'll be going in the compost.

apprentice_tycoon

I have the same problem with these tiny little flies, I don't get grass clippings or much in the way of 'garden' material so it's mainly kitchen waste of peelings, teabags, egg shells and egg boxes etc so (you're all going to hate me for this.....) I give the bin a quick squirt of fly killer and bang the lid back on immediately, I just do this when it gets anti-social not every day.

molesworth

Debt _Free_ Chick, I'm sure you're right - too much kitchen waste in our bin. Many thanks!
Apprentice Tycoon - I have looked longingly at the fly-killer. So if the worst comes to the worst ... Thank you!

ymcas

We always used to put compost fodder in the old coal store in the garden, but never really actually used the compost as we were always putting more stuff on top and whenever I was thinking about using it Hubby decides to mix it all up. So I bought one of the plastic compost bins, thinking that we have one for adding to, and the other for taking out of, and then swap over. The only problem is there are soooooooooo many flies in the plastic compost bin, and when I used it last year the flies seemed to attack my plants. So how do I get rid of these flies? They are Horrible but my hubby doesn't seem to think it is a problem.

alanobrien

Leave the lid off and spray with water, it may not get rid of them all but a lot will dissapear........

mattogier

napalm should do it - search google for a recipe.

Farway

What flies are they? Bluebottles or just tiny compost, fungus type flies

If the former then you are putting the wrong material in

If the latter then Hubby is right, they will not attack living plants and are part of the eco system, like pandas, but smaller

moonrakerz

"Fruit flies

These are tiny white or brown flies no more than 2mm in length. They will be present in large numbers and can appear as a cloud when the compost bin lid is removed.
Anybody who puts fruit and vegetable wastes into their bin will encounter these files at some point during the summer. They are totally harmless and are part of the composting process because they feed on the fruit acids contained in the material.
To remove them, simply cover the top layer of fruit or vegetable wastes with a thin layer of soil or compost and they should disappear within a couple of days."

arkonite_babe

This thread from post #397 to #412 has advice on flies in your compost bin that should help.

Alternatively there are links in the useful links sticky at the top of the board that will give you some more advice

HTH