Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

> On 07/18/2010 02:43 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
> > I have been looking for a few years now how to get something like this 
> > started here on our farm in Ireland and found only a void.
> > One man complained about black soldier flies in a compost heap some 400 
> > miles from where I am. . .   ~john
>
> John, do you know your climate zone there? In the US, BSF are native at 
> least through Zone 7, though the northern edge of their range is really 
> not "nailed down" with any certainty--folks north of 7 often find they 
> have an ambient population to work with. I haven't done much research in 
> BSF in other contries, other than learning that they are common in the 
> tropics/sub-tropics, hence well suited to bioconversion there.
>
> ~Harvey

Hi Harvey,
the climate in Ireland can not so simply be caught in a "zone". Your zone's 
are land/continental zones while we have a sea/Atlantic climate. Maximum 
temperature does not go high above 20 C outside ever. The average difference 
between the coldest and the warmest month of the year is just 9 C. Night 
frost is possible in any month but really we have no very cold temperatures 
even in winter (although we had uniquely 5 months of solid frost last 
winter) That is the most typical thing here, that nothing is certain. The 
temperature can change from zero C to 20 in ten minutes and back to zero ten 
minutes later. That is hard on many plants except for a few that are used to 
it.

I have seen a very few black soldier flies in the wild but usually with more 
than a year in between observations. And I have not seen any interest in 
rotting vegetation. So if I want to start culturing these (with protection 
in a poly tunnel) I'd best find someone who has already got a colony 
established.
john