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Aliens in my wormery

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2020 4:46 pm
by swedboy
Not sure if I need to care about this but I have a massive fruit fly infestation in the wormery plus slugs. Do they actually damage the wormery as such? The flies are a nuisance when you open the bin and slugs in general are a foe of mine.

Re: Aliens in my wormery

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 8:33 am
by WillyWorm
Hi, neither will hurt your worms. Slugs are part of the composting process and are very efficient at turning waste into castings of a quality as good as worms. However there is a big possibility that when you spread the castings you will also spread slug eggs all round your garden, for this reason they should be removed and disposed of. It is not recommended to use any slug pellets in your worm bin. You could set a “beer trap” for them, I dispose of them with a pair of scissors I keep near the bin. Provided you don’t use chemicals you can return the dead slugs to the bin for the worms to dispose of.
Fruit flys are a pain at this time of year. To avoid getting them bury all food when you feed your worms or cover with a couple of sheets of paper or cardboard. To get ride of them put a layer of shredded paper or cardboard over the surface of your bin and do not disturb for a day or two. You could leave the lid off for a couple of hours, if your bin is out side, to allow the flies a chance to fly off. Again don’t be tempted to use fly sprays.

Willy

Re: Aliens in my wormery

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 9:56 am
by Lilwriggler
I hadn’t thought about slug eggs :( they will be getting removed from the wormery now..

Re: Aliens in my wormery

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 9:42 am
by WillyWorm
Just a thought on keeping slugs out of your bin. You can buy a copper sticky tape in the garden centre, apply this in a continuous band around the outside of the sump. It’s not 100% prevention but helps a lot.

Willy

Re: Aliens in my wormery

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 12:21 pm
by Dstressdx2
I think Willie means to keep slugs out of the wormery lol. Worms are welcome anytime in mine.

Re: Aliens in my wormery

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 2:21 pm
by WillyWorm
Your right lol sorry about that. Yea get get copper tape to keep SLUGS out of the bin