UPDATE! i wanted to report back with some preliminary results if anyone is interested. per everyone's advice, i ditched the vermiculite and went with a strictly bark-peat-perlite mix. last weekend, i whipped up 16.4 cu ft of mix, which filled 5 big sterilite tubs. it worked out to: 36.5% (6 cu ft, 3 bags) bark fines 36.5% (6 cu ft, 1 bale) peat moss (expanded) 27% (4.4 cu ft, 1 bag) coarse perlite (plus 1 gallon of dolomite lime (1 cup/cu ft) for ph balance and 2 gallons (2 cups/cu ft) of espoma garden-tone fertilizer). THIS RECIPE HAS ISSUES. BEWARE: after making the mix, wetting it down, filling the containers, sowing my seeds, and observing for a week, it seems the proportion of perlite is much too high. the mix is supremely light and virtually impossible to compact (i tried, it just stays super loose), and there is plenty of oxygen-containing airspace. i realize that these all sound like good things. HOWEVER, the soil is so fluffy from being full of perlite that it's not wicking water up all that well. the base of the containers are soupy bogs, while the top inch is bone dry. this has made starting seeds difficult because the seedlings are too tiny to reach the vast water reserves (this would not be a problem with larger transplants). in the meantime, i am top-watering the seedlings until they are large enough to reach the moister mix a couple of inches down. next season, i will cut the mix with additional peat and bark to reduce the proportion of perlite. i have much more bulk ingredients and more containers to fill this season, and so i am revising the above recipe by using only half of the 4.4 cu ft bag of perlite per batch, which puts me at 42% bark 42% peat 16% perlite if the little veggie babies survive, i will report back with pictures of the setup. happy gardening!

Crystalshoe- Hydrology, not the size of the bed or container, determines whether you're growing in a raised bed (RB) or a container, and by extension, what type of soil you can/should use. A planting of daisies in a plastic or clay pot resting on your deck or patio is a container planting. Bury that pot an inch or two into the ground so there is continuity between the medium in the pot and the soil the pot is partially buried in, and it becomes a RB - no matter what size the pot is. The difference is, the earth will act as a giant wick, and remove water that would normally perch in a conventional container planting, but water movement within the partially buried container would closely mimic water movement in the earth or in the soil below. There is a caveat, however. The area where the pot is buried or partially buried would need to drain properly for things to work. If you were to bury the pot in clay soil that allowed essentially no percolation, the pot would simply fill up with water at every rainfall or irrigating. If you're building a RB over a clay soil that drains poorly - don't amend the clay unless you can drain the area. If you do, water will percolate or run into the area you amended, leaving it saturated for extended periods (the bathtub effect). You can remedy this problem if you are able to cut trenches or use a French drain cut into the clay to drain excess water to a lower area away from where you're growing. Not amending the clay below your beds also allows any excess water in the RB soil to move laterally over the surface of the clay where it can evaporate. If you amend, the water won't move laterally until the amended depression is entirely saturated with water. No matter how you look at it, you're eventually going to have problems with a RB over clay unless you can figure a way to use gravity or a pump to move water from the area. As soil life moves through the clay and increases the OM content of the clay below the RBs, that soil will become more porous than the surrounding clay. The pores will quickly fill with water when it rains or when you irrigate unless you have a plan to remove the water. The end game is, the water that collects below your RBs has to have a place to go. It has to drain naturally in a reasonable time, or be directed downhill or to a sump where it can be mechanically removed. Amending the soil beneath RBs just forces you to face the brunt of the problem sooner (in heavy clay soils). BTW - you don't need to use a highly aerated soil like that you referred to in your OP in RBs. In fact, the highly aerated soils that perform so well in containers are probably not a particularly good choice for RBs because they have a steep water retention curve that will have you watering more than you'd prefer. Keep in mind that the time you spend now, properly preparing, will save a lot of time and frustration later. How many beds? Size/depth? Budget constraints high, low, medium? Ready access to materials you think might work? Al

For all of my garden beds (standard perennial and raised for veggies) i just turned the sod over and added soil/compost/etc on top. This quickly smothers out a majority of the grass in quick order. The house is newer so the "soil" below the sod is just fill clay. So I figured i might as well just keep it there... i can only help... as long as you don't plan on tilling in your new amendments. Obviously if you plant immediately you might run to some of overturned sod, but it's easy enough to rebury as needed to smother it. When i have thrown sod clumps (with clay dirt attached) into my compost, the worms just love it. After a few weeks when i go to turn the pile, there will be hundreds of worms swarming the sod/clay dirt. They appear to be standard earth worms vs the red wigglers though... which are through out the whole pile. I break them up when i turn and don't seem to have any issues of the pile cooling down noticeably.

dsfoxx, it sure is refreshing to read someone posting factual statements about black soldier fly larvae. Have you blogged or posted much about your experiences with them? Since this thread shows up frequently in search results I would like to comment on some of the previous statements. Culturing BSF is my hobby and I'm still learning about them, but I'm familiar with the basics of BSF behavior and life cycle. I don't have much experience with traditional composting so I'm not qualified to give advice about that specifically. My observations are based on working with dedicated BSF "composting" units. From previous comments in this thread: "The BSFL were undisturbed. Temps of 145 -150 did not bother them in the LEAST." BSF larvae die at about 113F (45ºC) "There's a particular barnyard aroma to BSFL piles." The only consistent aroma I've found with BSF colonies is the mild smell of wet straw. The typical smell generated is that of wet straw plus whatever waste you're processing. When I add cinnamon bread to my BSF composter it smells good, like a bakery. If you search you can find several references to the mild odors associated with BSF larvae. Foul odors are sign that the colony is out of balance which is usually simple to fix. In a properly managed dedicated BSF unit anaerobic bacteria are limited by the constant churning of the larvae which aerates the waste. A well designed BSF unit will have good drainage to avoid flooding. "I put a fly swatter out there this summer, and I kill any adult I see, on the 'no egg, no larva' plan." You'll only be wasting your time and burning a few calories with that approach. "I'm thinking about starting off next year with a garbage can--sounds grim, but at least then the mature larvae can't crawl off to pupate. If they 'all' lay 'all' the eggs in a solid plastic garbage can, I can put said can in my truck and take the whole business two hours away to my mother's farm--Mom has chickens, and Mom is tough. Mom once shook Japanese beetles off her fruit trees onto a sheet and saved a five gallon bucket of them in her freezer to feed her pet chickens over winter." Your Mom sounds cool. However, it's possible for the larvae to escape a plastic garbage can under some circumstances. They can climb a smooth vertical surface if there is condensation present, and they can squeeze under any lid that isn't extremely tight fitting. Also there is little chance that "all" the BSF would lay on the garbage can anyway. "Black Soldier Fly larva are used to consume animal manures and the only thing the adult flies do in their about 30 day life is look for another BSF to mate with,..." BSF consume most food waste in addition to manure, and their lifespan is reportedly 5-8 days. You're right about their goal as adult flies. "...so except as a food source of predatory insects or birds they really serve no purpose." BSF larvae actually serve as a food source for an extremely wide variety of animals including birds, mammals, insects, reptiles and amphibians. But the idea that such a powerful detritivore serves no purpose other than as prey for other animals isn't logical. "I have noticed often when these larva are present there is a putrid odor to the compost indicating too much moisture which displaces the necesary air which creates that putrid odor." I agree with your statement because you qualified by saying "often". The point I want to stress is that putrid odors are not necessarily a part of BSF culturing and can be avoided with an understanding of their life cycle and behavior. "I definitly did not use enough brown, realizing that now, but i also remember that i saw the little buggers in the yard in a pile of yard clippings in a bin before i even started composting so they were here already somehow." Anything's possible but it would be unusual to find BSF larva in a pile of just yard clippings since they don't normally consume such high cellulose items. You're probably right that BSF where already there; they are very common in most of the United States and around the world in hot to mild climates. "I offered the maggots to a local chicken farmer but she was concerned about introducing them around her house," The farmer's concerns were unfounded; if you had BSF then she would have had them also, especially with chickens present. The interesting thing about BSF is that they normally do their important work virtually unnoticed by people because the adults don't pester us. Typically a female BSF will lay eggs near a food source and then leave to finish out her short life without ever coming into contact with a human. Furthermore if your local farmer understood that BSF larvae limit reproduction of house flies and other pest species she would welcome their presence. "I can't imagine having a compost goal of never having any soldier fly larvae, ever. It would be too much like looking at composting as requiring a recipe and a perfect rate of completion and outcome, like baking perfect bread that either comes out "right" or is tossed out if it goes a bit one way or the other. I mean, one piece of pumpkin or apple in a bit cooler area of a pile may harbor some larvae." What a reasonable person you are. "I find that it only takes a day to get it heated up and cooking. Weekly turning will keep it cooking, and I don't usually see them in the core. They might stick around on top if I don't have enough browns to cover it with. BSFL are just a normal part of composting if they live in your region." And another balanced perspective! "I put in kitchen scraps and hay and some paper. Things went well, though during the cooler months it wasn't breaking down much. Then about a month or so ago we noticed that all the gnats were gone, the stuff was starting to break down, and the bin was full of what seemed to be Black Soldier Fly maggots. The smell was fine, and I read up on it and thought it was ok, so I let it go." This is what I would expect in a properly draining system inhabited by BSF larvae. The reduction of gnats (and other flies), rapid breakdown of waste and mild odor are all typical of a balanced BSF unit. "The Aerobin has a tea spout at the bottom along with a bottom drainage system. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the bottom of the Aerobin was seeping sludge. The tea spout produced a lot of liquid, but didn't stop the seeping sludge. I opened the side doors and it was just disgusting. Maggots fell out, sludge fell out, and it smelled like sewage." And this is what to expect when there are BSF present but there is inadequate drainage. As someone mentioned above; standing liquids create a zone where anaerobic bacteria can thrive creating the sewer-like odor. I realize that your Aerobin isn't designed for BSF composting, and that in the absence of BSF it's drain system would probably work fine. Without the BSF your waste would break down much more slowly giving the moisture contained in the waste time to evaporate gradually. When BSF larvae quickly devour high moisture waste like fruits and vegetables all of the liquids are released, overwhelming the drain. One possible solution to your problem might be to line the bottom of the unit with a filter material to keep the drain open. Coconut husk fiber (coir) works well for this and is readily available as welcome mats and wire planter liners. If you had been able to regularly drain the excess liquids I don't think you would have seen the smelly sludge develop. As mentioned above; it's not likely you'll be able to keep BSF out of your unit. I wouldn't put hay in the unit again due to the clogging your husband noticed when he cleaned the unit, however you might have better results by adding wood shavings. Wood shavings help absorb excess liquids but don't tend to clog as much. A lining of coir with a few inches of shavings might result in very low maintenance and high volume waste processing. I often add wood shavings or sawdust to my BSF units if they become too wet. "On the news tonight they mentioned that Florida is having some sort of infestation of a biting yellow fly, so that didn't make us feel any better." What does that have to do with BSF which are neither yellow nor biting? In fact, depending on the breeding habits of the yellow pest flies, having BSF present in your waste may actually deter them. BSF are proven to reduce house fly development in waste 94-100%. - "The black soldier fly (BSF) is a southern native, non-pest fly that unlike the house fly, is not attracted to human habitation or foods (Furman et al. 1959). BSF reduce manure accumulations 42-56% and give 94-100% house fly control through larval competition and by repelling ovipositing house flies (Bradley and Sheppard 1984). Elimination of lesser mealworm has been noted, but not well documented. The digested residue is a friable compost-like material with about 24% less nitrogen (net loss of 60%). From Bradley and Sheppard 1984 (6), cited in Roeder Meyer (8) "The 'putrid' smell people describe when they have alot of BSFL is NOT mismanagement of their compost piles. It's the maggot crap. It tends to be wet no matter what you do." BSF crap does not smell other than the mild odor of wet straw I mentioned above. Again, the BSF don't manufacture liquids, they release the moisture contained in food waste. "Getting a liquid from any compost, except vermicompost, means the material is too wet. The presence of Black Soldier Fly larva means the mixture is too wet." I would frame it that the sudden release of liquids due to breakdown by BSF may cause issues for composting. BSF larvae do require a moist environment, but they are not attracted to either anaerobic nor flooded conditions. - "Hoy (pers comm) suggests that adults avoid oviposition sites that are anaerobic." (1)"Wet substrates were less attractive to ovipositing Hermetia Illucens (aka black soldier fly) (Booth and Sheppard 1984). Therefore, water was added to medium used for an oviposition attractant to near the saturation point to encourage oviposition [in another location]." (10) "Based on observations made at Caboolture Sewage Treatment Plant, soldier flies do not lay their eggs in sewage sludge pilesÂ. Under experimental conditions indoors (described below), adults did not lay in open containers of sewage sludge." (3)" "Since the adult BSF does nothing except mate to produce more larva, and may be among those flies that are known to spread disease pathogens around, there is no good reason to be thrilled about having these critters in your compost." 1.) It's an odd oversimplification to say that any creature only exits to reproduce. 2.) Research indicates that BSF are not vectors of human disease. BSF adults rarely contact waste directly and instead lay their eggs above or beside waste. Since the adults don't eat they don't land on food to be consumed by humans. House flies and other pest species do land directly on waste and then they target human food which is why they ARE vectors of human disease. In fact, BSF have been shown to reduce some pathogens in waste. - "Erickson, M.C., M. Islam, C. Sheppard, J. Liao, and M.P. Doyle. 2004. Reduction of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis in chicken manure by larvae of the black soldier fly. J. Food Protection. 67:685-690. 3.) Generalizing that "there is no good reason to be thrilled about having" BSF larvae in your compost doesn't take into consideration the growing number of people who are indeed thrilled about working with BSF. It usually starts with understanding the creature correctly. "If the material is too wet and we know that the liquid is largely coming from the maggots, is the liquid bad to use? I am worried that I just sprayed nothing but bugs on my beans and totally destroyed them." Some claim that the liquid effluent released by BSF metabolism can be used as a fertilizer. I haven't tested this but I don't promote the use of the liquid. I doubt it is what killed your beans though. To all; I hope I didn't come across as too defensive in my efforts to correct what I perceive to be misinformation about BSF. I could be wrong about some of my positions and I'm willing to examine them. I spend so much of my time undoing misconceptions about BSF that it gets tiring. I look forward to the day when more time is spent helping people design systems and maximize performance. I didn't post reference links but there is a great compilation of BSF data at BioSystemsBlog.com: biosystemsblog.com/2008/07/09/black-soldier-fly-compiled-research-on-best-cultivation-practices