This has been an ongoing joke with Mom and Dad. I need to scale the larvae and flies up, which requires space. I also have a few other projects on my list that have eaten into their space. I am so grateful that they have allowed me the opportunity to screw up and fine tune and figure this stuff out. It would be nice if I didn't overstay my welcome while doing all of this *insert nervous chuckle*
By day, I work as a floral designer at Nevills Flowers. By night, a fly farmer. I also have a lot of peppers growing with the goal of fermenting hot sauce and salsa in the fall. Being a grower will allow me to also be my own customer for the compost I've been maturing from the larvae.
Here is a short list of the projects that I've been working on. If you'd like to read further on and see more photos of the projects, the link to more info is included.
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| This looks like a good location for Project 1 |
Project 1 // The Hugelkultur
Ever since I read about a hugelkultur, I've wanted to make one. Dad scouted some well-aged logs that have been down for a while. I chose the west end of the garden and tilled a trench running south to north. We dug out the loose dirt and tilled down again, digging out more loose dirt. Mom helped me pull the logs out of the brush, across the stream and down to the garden. She must love me.
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| Growth progress as of July 2 |
It is now planted with 6 nastertiums, 5 cayenne peppers, 25 habanero peppers, 12 jalapeno peppers, 20 Hungarian hot wax peppers and 12 New Mexico J. E. Parker peppers. A couple peppers didn't make it, but everything else is growing. All of the plants -- except for 6 Hungarian hot wax -- I had started by seed.
My wish list had a compost tumbler that I wanted to have to mature the larvae residue from 20,000 larvae. There were 55 gallon plastic, food-grade drums available at Surplus City. They also had 55 gallon drums that had peanut butter in them. Since neither of these items would fit in my car, I mentioned it to Dad and he picked up one of each for me.
He and I watched a variety of YouTube DIY compost tumbler videos, and we compared notes, engineering it together.
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| The tumbler has been operational for a couple weeks now |
I really wanted to build a vertical pallet garden. I stapled and screwed some natural fiber coffee sacks to the back. It wasn't a complicated assembly. The pallet garden was placed before I filled it with dirt. It leans up against the porch, which makes it more of a 45 degree garden. I have planted in this 4 nastertiums, 8 cayenne peppers, 4 jalapeno peppers and 4 basil.
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| Growth progress as of July 2 |
I had to buy more larvae. I didn't want to but it needed to be done due to the disappointing fly reproduction activity. I was able to collect the hatch of a few hundred new larvae, but that was all.
Purchasing 20,000 larvae doesn't require much space initially but they eat fast and grow fast and I had to accommodate. Also, 20,000 larvae will turn into 20,000 flies. I've built and rebuilt the perfect fly house for them. I think I've figured it out at this point. I still really wish I had a greenhouse built for them to have more space and that way I could park the fly emergence barrel and not worry about daily fly collecting. It's my goal to be as hands off from this process as possible. I don't mind handling them, but they might mind me handling them.
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| Nightly fly collection |
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