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The Bio Pod Plus is the latest bin available by Prota Culture, and it utilizes native soldier fly larvae to compost an increased quantity of household material, including meat, grease, and dairy products.

Once your bio pod is stocked with larvae (which happens naturally in zones 7 and 6, and occasionally in zone 5), food scraps are broken down quickly and efficiently. The results: grubs, compost, and compost tea. Note: if you live at higher latitudes, it is possible to obtain soldier grubs online to stock your system in the springtime for the whole growing season.

We love this system, because with it you can compost all food scraps from your household! Secondly, if you have backyard chickens (or know someone who does) then this method of composting will also provide you with a steady supply of protein for your chickens. In fact, soldier grubs have a good concentration of the primary amino acids that chickens need to be healthy (methionine, lysine, tryptophan, and threonine).

Of course, this bin needs to be maintained outside, but the soldier flies will handle the Texas heat all right. Just make sure to keep them in the deepest shade available. The only potential downside of the bio pod plus is that you will not get much useable compost back (certainly way less than from a “hot” composting or a worm bin system). The bio pod plus is designed to process a lot of food wastes quickly, and to grow a lot of grubs. Finally, the soldier fly is less interested in composting yard wastes, and it tends to focus on high nitrogen rich food – mix in too many leaves or grass and the soldier fly community may move on to “greener” pastures.

A word about the soldier fly, hermetia illucens. It has no mouth, so it doesn’t eat, it isn’t interested in humans, and it doesn’t want to come in your house. All the soldier fly wants to do is mate and lay eggs. If you see the soldier fly, it is typically perched on a tree in the yard, or at times hovering near the bio pod (to which it is attracted).

We plan to offer a grub composting workshop this summer, and if you are interested please shoot us a short note and we’ll add you to the notification e-mail list when we set a date and time.

Happy composting!

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