Compost and Plants update

I re-planted all my plants about a month ago, changing their containers and adding some organic plant food because they all seemed a little sad. Since then all the plants I repotted have been flourishing like crazy... they all seem very happy in their containers. I'm pretty pleased with the flourishing green-ness of my balcony.

Now for the compost update. About a month ago I started a small compost bin on my 2nd floor balcony as an experiment. Since then Chris and I have been saving all our fruit and veggie waste in a plastic container in the fridge, and then when it gets full we dump it into one of the little compost boxes in the back. We've been pretty good about turning it once a week or more, too. And we don't put any animal products in there either. However, so far I don't know whether or not this experiment has been very... successful. For one thing, a lot of pieces break down quickly, but a lot of others seem to take forever to break down, so I don't really know when I can actually "harvest" some compost for my plants, if there are always fruit and veggie bits in there. I decided not to put anything new in the center container so it has time to completely break down, but it doesn't seem to be doing much work to break things down either. The left container is the one I "feed" most often and seems to be doing the best, although it also seems like it will never break enough food down since I keep feeding it. It's crawling with ants like crazy, too, which I guess is ok, but really I think the ants are just taking all the food away.

My big concern is with the far right section, which is crawling with big brown maggots. It's smelly and gross and the whole thing looks like it's moving.

EWWW!

So I asked Google about my composting issues (ants, maggots) and I learned a few things...

1. The Internet doesn't have a clue about composting bugs. I found so many conflicting responses to questions about both ants AND maggots that I have very little faith in actually getting any correct answers. (Pour boiling water on the ants and DON'T pour boiling water on the ants were both in google's top 5 links, and I also found tons of conflicting reports on the maggots, with "these maggots are good" and "these maggots are bad" both in the top options). I can only hope I managed to discern which ones were actually wise counsel and which were the words of fools.
   
2. Apparently ants will show up if the compost isn't damp enough. If I dampen those sections it should help.
3. Apparently these particular maggots are okay and harmless if I want to let them stick it out, but they are there because that compost section is too damp. If I add more brown plant material and shredded paper it should help dry it out and get rid of the maggots.

I am especially amused that I've managed to simultaneously create too dry and too damp compost. I've also seen people saying that if my compost is off the ground it should help with my pest problem.. which is interesting since, as I mentioned before, it's on wooden slates on a 2nd floor balcony. How much farther above ground to I need it?

At any rate, I think I'm going to get the hubby to help me implement some of these "solutions" tomorrow so I can keep my distance... just the time I've spent today photographing it and dampening the ant-compost heaps has my skin crawling, and five bucks says I'll dream of maggots crawling on my food or something. ::shudders::