Fruit fly control

[Florence]

We had a few unusually warm days lately, I've just sown some tomato seeds last week and been thinking about fruit fly control. I've seen fly traps and bags at Scarlett's place, just wondering what everyone else uses for fruit fly control, and what are good fly traps (bought or DIY) and lures.

Also, does the stockings that worked so well against rodents for Betty & Bob works for fruit flies too?

Thanks ~

[Elaine de Saxe]

OK as soon as I can work it in the daylight. Don't hold your breath in the meantime ;-)

[Scarlett Patrick]

could be a fungal infection too? lol, you shouldn't be squeamish - information is power! but it must be disappointing :(
next year!

[Donna]

Are you sure the problem with zukes is fruit fly? I found that an application of calcium worked for mine last year when they were rotting - think it was some sort of blossom end rot thing rather than fruit fly...

[Elaine de Saxe]

Aha! Light bulb moment, Donna :-) I had never connected blossom end rot in Tomatoes with a similar thing in Zukes! For years I have been un-successful with zukes and last year I tried golden squash. Same thing - one beautiful fruit and the rest rotted. Makes sense, plant uses up available calcium for one fruit and the rest just can't grow. What do you use as a source of calcium? Gypsum? You can use dried milk powder but it's a tad exxy when Gypsum will do the job.

[Vanessa Thompson (pomare)]

I cut them open to see what was going on......a little rotten on the ends. and they had maggots.
or is mine a matter of blossom end rot that is attracting fruit fly?

(I found my old camera but now cant find the programe that goes to the computer. so i cant up load my pics :-(

[Donna]

Vanessa, if there were maggots then it is not blossom end rot in your case. With regard to the camera, try doing a google search for the camera software - try something like 'canon l160 free software' - and see if you get any hits...

Elaine, I used lime which I now know isn't the best idea as it changes the pH but didn't know that then - maybe dolomite is a bit better solution although it does change the pH a bit as well...

[Addy]

Elaine, I had the same thing happen to my zukes last year, rotted at the ends! Donna, would you sprinkle the dolomite over the mulch and water it in - or move the mulch and sprinkle on the soil?

[Vanessa]

I tried lime this year, put it in the soil before I planted the zukes. Still ended up with the same problem (although not quite as bad) - I was reading somewhere that this can also be a result of non-pollination so after reading up about this marched out to the garden with cotton tip in hand only to find I had no male flowers. Wondering if this could be the problem for other people too. And to think I had heard that zukes were easy and very prolific!! Still combating the powdery mildew as well : (

[Addy]

Interesting! I'm having to hand pollinate cuke flowers on 2 of the plants - they are growing on the shady side of the bed. Luckily there are male flowers on the other 2 plants that are on the sunny side. My zukes are just budding, and by the looks of the growths, they are male flowers...

[Vanessa Thompson (pomare)]

I kind of found the zuks that i did hand pollinate, those were just growing dead like and studed the growth, so ive left nature to do its thing and hello, I had lots more come up on their on???
and yes, ive got both things wrong with mine........ive found the zuks that wont drop the flowers, end up with rot and the ones that did drop the flowers have got the flys.
So all together ive only got two zuks of my 4 plants and have chucked 4 zuks away and moro will be chucking 6 more away by the looks of this conversation.

[Florence]

I have a similar problem last year, I have not yet harvested any zuchinni despite I am down to my last two seeds although there were not many in the packet. For some reason, I've only been getting female flowers. There were one or two male flowers to start off with, and then all female ^^"

I've just planted these last two seeds two days ago, hopefully this time in the veggie beds they are going to grow better.... I should probably find a spot to put in Anthony's zuchinni as well in case these seeds fails again... but I think the Root/cucurbitaceae/Allium beds are already full ^^"

[Donna]

Florence, I am thinking that female flowers need more shade time (or maybe less heat?) than males to develop. Addy has a thread on cucumbers that seems to point to this. I didn't get female flowers on my pumpkins last year until nearly too late...

I agree that zukes are a lot harder to grow than what i had heard (mildew, rotting etc) - hence why I am trying luffa as they are *supposed* to do better in our climate and used the same way...