Maggots in my pumpkin garden. How do I get rid of them?

[olizgrl007]

Hello forum,

I'm new to gardening and thought this would be a great year grow pumpkins for my little ones.

Long story short, I've come to find I have maggots in the soil.

I'm thinking it must be the liquid fish emulsion that I sprayed last week. How do I get rid of them without damaging the pumpkin plants? We've come so far and now I have these disgusting things crawling out of my pretty pumpkin patch! As my kids would say....ewwww

Help!

[rainbowgardener]

It's hard for me to believe that fish emulsion or anything else you did last week has anything to do with your maggots. Maggots are larvae, usually of some kind of fly. They have to start out as eggs, hatch into larvae and then grow enough to be visible and come to the surface. I don't know for sure, but I'm thinking that's more than a one week process.

Most things that crawl on the soil and are soft bodied are vulnerable to diatomaceous earth. Just get some from garden store and sprinkle it over the soil and the plant leaves. It is safe (except that you don't particularly want to breath much of it in while sprinkling, could be irritating to mucous membranes). It doesn't poison anything, it just has on a micro scale very sharp edges that cuts the worm bodies so they leak fluids.

[olizgrl007]

Thank you for responding! We are going to try the diatomaceous earth today. I really, really hope it works as I'd hate to have the larvae cause damage to the plants we've worked so hard on.

I will keep you posted and welcome any other suggestions