Roaches in the Compost

You've set up your tumbler or compost pile, began filling it up with all the things that people dump into their compost.  You've even watered and turned it over on a regular basis like a well-behaved composter.  And then you spot one:  a furtive, scurrying brown bug that is undeniably a... ROACH! What's worse, there's not just one.  There are several.  It looks like the darn things have burrowed their way into your pile and are now living happily in it.  Eeek!  You have a roach problem! 

Here's the thing. As the song goes (sort of), if you're lookin at Texoma, you're looking at country. Most of our citizens live in small towns and rural areas, and do not have problems with indoor roach infestations. The kind that you're seeing in your compost may be gross-out, but they are probably not the city roaches that we all know and don't love. These are wood or tree roaches.


Wood roaches live and breed outside. They are attracted to light (as opposed to their city counterparts who cut and run when you turn a light on). They can get into the house, especially early in the summer, but never seem to go after your food or set up housekeeping under your fridge. It seems more an accident than intentional when it happens, and it is.  Your compost on the other hand is full of just the sort of food that they're looking for.  So besides the panicked stomping and whacking (and screaming if you're me), what should you do about this huge, huge problem?

In a word:  nothing.  Keep watering, turning and taking care of your compost pile.  Stomp the roaches if you just can't handle them being there, but do the best you can to see them as a cog in the machine known as the composting cycle.  Wood roaches have a bad rep due to their disease-carrying, house dwelling counterparts; however, like all the other bugs that are attracted to your compost, they WILL help your pile compost down.  Compost is absolutely vital to a healthy garden.  It's worth putting up with a few wood roaches to have it.  If it's any consolation, as the "green" in your pile decays down into soil, it will attract less bugs in general.

Happy gardening.