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Pot worms and cornmeal

10 years ago

I have a small problem with pot worms in my bin after I made the mistake of adding too much ground coffee and vegetables at once. I'm not dealing with a lot of pot worms, but I would prefer to have none.

I've tried withholding food and adding more paper and crushed egg shells in order to get rid of the pot worms. After a week when it seemed that the pot worms had finally died off, I added a little bit of food and more newspaper. Unfortunately, when I checked the bin again a few days later, I noticed the pot worms were back. Still less than the first time, but still there.

I am again withholding food and I added more crushed egg shells and paper and I plan to hold off feeding the bin for about 2 weeks. I wonder if after the two weeks I should add cornmeal instead of the usual fruits and vegetables in order to feed my worms but to keep the remaining surviving pot worms from gaining a foot-hold again. My question is this: Do pot worms eat cornmeal?

Since I would be sprinkling a little cornmeal which is dry, I would think it would initially repel the surviving pot worms from feeding and thriving. Anyone know or have experience with cornmeal and pot worms?

Comments (4)

  • 10 years ago

    IM thinking cornmeal itself is not why potworms appear. I very often feed cornmeal along crushed oats and the worms seem to devour it too fast for any problems to develop. Im also thinking overfeeding which would also cause a too moist and maybe even acid environments which I wouldnt want. I would be more cautious of too many spider mites in the bin which could also indicate a too wet bin.

    miscel thanked hummersteve
  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    I don't want to inadvertently give the pot worms reason to survive by adding cornmeal. I made that mistake when I added the small quantity of vegetables after withholding food for a week. I agree I don't think cornmeal on its own would cause pot worms to appear, but would cornmeal allow few straggling pot worms to survive?

    My bin is fortunately not too wet. I don't have holes on the bottom or sides of my bin, so I make sure that the conditions never get too wet. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of adding too much coffee grounds and then adding some vegetables to compensate for the coffee grounds. It made the environment acidic enough for the pot worms to appear. Fortunately, because my bin isn't too wet, the pot worm population is small, but I would prefer the pot worms to be gone for good.

    Spider mites - glad I don't have a problem with them. However pot worms are pretty tenacious.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    If it's true that they hate alkaline environments, I guess they'd hate alkaline food, so I would mix the cornmeal with an equal quantity of dry egg shells and blend them together into a fine powder. If potworms hate alkaline food, they won't eat it.

    miscel thanked Seun
  • 10 years ago

    Thanks. I think you two are both right about the corn meal. In another 10 days or so, I'll add more crushed egg shells, paper and cornmeal. Hopefully, the mixture will kill off the remaining pot worms. Better yet I hope the pot worms are all gone by then. Die pot worms die.

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