"Peter Robinson" wrote in message
...
®óñ© © "°'°-°" wrote:

Many people advise against trying to compost banana skins.

Why?

Peter

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

David.

On Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:15:24 +0100, dominic Lucas wrote
(in message ):

I have the same problem, small flies and wasps (anyone know why wasps
would hang around compost bins?)

Hi. Having sat and watched the wasps for some time this year my conclusion is
that all wasps are insane. Their behaviour makes no sense at all- they fly
around like demented idiots most of the time. I watched one repeatedly settle
on a splotch of dried somethingorother on the outside of a compost bin, only
to fly off about a foot, zigzag wildly from side to side, then settle again
and repeat the whole process multiple ttimes. Now that's productivity! They
seem to love investigating irrelevant things that offer no nutritional,
reproductive or other payoff.

the flies don't fly very much, they
seem to give up after about 3ft, and head back to the compost. The wasps
may well be drawn by other composted items, like old raspberries. So far
the only was I have found of reducing the problem, is covering the
compost with a thin layer of soil from time to time

Now that's a good idea. I do that to redress other compost problems anyway,
so I'll ry it for this too.

, also, when putting
food waste in, cover it with papers, other weeds, anything not food
waste.

Good idea.

One thing that might work is put the household compost out, then
mow the lawn! Unfortunately I can't comment on that one, my lawn mower
doesn't produce clippings.

Are you sure it is actually cutting the grass? I think generally speaking,
clippings are the expected by-product! (;-)

Hope some of that helps, if you find an answer, let us know

Dominic

I'm going to use Bokashi composters now and get a new compost bin that will
only take the Boksahi output. Fruit waste will only go into the Bokashis from
now on. It is possible- I wouldn't put it any more strongly than that- that
the flies won't like this pickled stuff nearly so much and may even leave it
alone. We'll see. Thanks for the suggestions.


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