Composting ..

ran amok last night.

For some reason all the maggots in the pot decided to collectively desert the ship. They started dropping off the pot and crawling like mad all over the place and into the house under the verandah doors. We did some firefighting and stuffed the doorgap when we went to bed last night. Some of them nevertheless managed to get into the house, and the rest were scattered variously around the verandah. Altogether there must have been 40-50 of them. We disposed them off variously, some went over the parapet, some went back into the pot, and most are in a couple of containers awaiting further action.
Current hypotheses are as follows:
-- the bottom pot which sits on a container (see photo) has some airholes which are supposed to be properly covered with a terracotta piece to prevent the worms from crawling out. This isn't working properly in our case
-- we are going through a cold spell recently and the worms are seeking warmer weather
-- I sprayed some lemongrass water on the pot that morning which is a natural insecticide, as the flies were getting too much. Maybe that triggered the exodus.

Damage control is over, we are in watch-n-wait mode. Have to see what happens tonight and decide what to do with the captured maggots. The guys who sold us the stuff haven't been too responsive so far in our time of crisis.

Actually the guys are not too gross. One can get used to them after a while. But not in the house please.