Any non-noxious way to chase grubs out of my compost pile?

[Gold Metal Flake]

I've been picking them out as I add stuff and turn stuff over, but I need to gather stuff from the neighbor hood, add some manure and build up some volume so that I have enough for my next years garden expansion plans. I'm thinking it would be nice to find some way to irritate the bastards so they hve to leave.

[XemaSab]

1. Why do you want to get rid of them?

:shrug:

[awoke_in_2003]

3. Well,

they kill lawns by eating their root systems, probably do the same to gardens.

[Gold Metal Flake]

4. Yup. Also, these are over an inch long.

Big grubs. Not garden-friendly.

I guess I'll do what I did last year and just sift through the stuff before I apply it to the garden.

[HamdenRice]

5. Grub is just a generic term for a "pupae" (sp?)

It's part of the life cycle of many different insects. I'm not so sure you can tell that the grub in your compost is the kind that eats grass roots. If you use the compost this fall, you will kill it any way because the thing is probably borrowing down in the compost to go to sleep till spring and exposing it to the elements by spreading the compost will kill it; if you leave the compost till spring, the grub will have hatched by the time you spread it and left on its own anyway.

It can't really do any harm in your compost pile. Even if it is eating roots and stuff in your compost pile, that's a good thing, because basically your compost pile is a pile of living things eating your dead grass and leaves and turning it into insect and bacteria poo, which is what you want.

I always leave grubs in the compost alone because they are part of the eco system of the compost pile and I've never had a problem with anything eating my grass or vegetable roots.

[Kolesar]

2. I see grey, inch-long, sow bugs that are like what I see on rotting logs

...in the woods. Those are the kind of bugs I would expect to see in the compost. I am always happy when the compost is airy enough that bugs can crawl through it.