You never know what you are going to find while harvesting herbs…

This little girl was hiding in the sage. Joy agreed to my letting her live, providing I took her FAR away for relocation. Which means, I am aware, that if one of our animals gets bit by a spider some time in the next decade or so it will be ALL MY FAULT.

She sure was pretty, though, in a scary sort of way.

I’ve been harvesting and drying batches of herbs for a week or so now. We’re supposed to get a freeze Sunday night so I need to get the last of the basil and sage, at least. The sage I already dried and rubbed is wonderful — the stuff from the grocery store is like a sad dusty imitation by comparison.

No doubt everyone was as excited as I am about the arrival of the black soldier flies to our compost pile, and disappointed that no photos of the actual squirming larvae accompanied my post. So here ya go. Aren’t they beautiful?

…which has since been relocated to a thicket far, far, away from our garden.

I noticed when I rolled the composter the past few times that our compost is now teeming with black soldier fly larvae – cool! We had them in the bins last year  when we lived in Candler, and at first I was very alarmed because I thought the compost had gotten infested with wasps that were going to get agitated and sting when I messed with the bins. Anyway, I got a couple of pictures back then, and did some research and discovered that these were a good thing. So when I looked at the compost the other day, and saw hundreds of huge gray wriggling larvae inside, I was very excited to see they’d found us again.

Soldier flies are very efficient at breaking down food waste and keeping pest flies away (hmmm… wonder if that’s why we also suddenly no longer have as much of a problem with fruit flies in there?) by making the material less inviting to them. Supposedly, the larvae are very nutritious; in fact people actually breed them to use as as a feed supplement for birds and as fish bait, which might be something to keep in mind for when we eventually get a few chickens. In the meantime, I am just happy to see they’ve taken up residence in our bin.

Soldier fly on our compost bin last year (not a very good picture, sorry)