Our 1 gallon kitchen compost bucket was always overflowing. And It attracted fruit flies in less than an hour from adding fruit and veggie scraps. So I placed a 5 gallon bucket outside the back door. We added all our waste to it. By the time I emptied it into the composter, I discovered loads of Maggots. I knew they were in there, But thought it beneficial to use this liquid to moisten my compost batch of leaves, grass, etc. I also thought the heat would kill them.
It's been about a week. I have steam rising form the tumbler, but when I rotate it for aeration, and open the door, the maggots scurry to bury into the pile.I have about a week to go for the batch to finish. So I don't want to add more browns at this point. Any suggestions?
Is it better to throw the food scraps onto my "pre-compost pile" (a staging area for ingredients to go into my composter when the current batch finishes) then use water to wet the compost ingredients, or is it better to use the liquid off rotting fruits and veggies to accomplish this even at the expense of maggots?