Black fly

After a black fly free summer so far, a massive attack on my squashes. Covered one of the plants and had to remove it completly. They are a bit close together and have spread underneath the sweet corn. I'm rather worried they could jump onto these as well. Any one else experiencing this problem? (still no rain for 3 weeks)

Mike McMillan
Isle of Wight

 

bug clear for fruit and veg.

 

I am hand wiping each leaf, messy finger !!!

 

Just about coping with 4 :hehe:

I have them growing up my Trachycarpus as I have no other room. I shall take a picture looks cool.:D

 

"Savona" soft soap spray for me. But you have to keep it up 'cos it only works on contact. No lasting effect at all.
P.S. I agree it's been a bad blackfly season all round to date. Even the weeds have got them!

 

I keep putting Ladybirds on my leaves over at the allotment but at the moment they are too busy breeding to worry about eating:D

 

Total waste of time expecting natural preditors to even partially control pests.
If they were too efficient, they would eat most of the prey, then they would not be able to find any, and would die by starvation.

Look at the vast herds of literally millions of Wildbeest,Zebras etc, roaming the plains of Africa, only about 1% are killed by lions, the rest die of injury or old age and are eaten by the scavengers.

There should be many more lion prides with that much prey, but the herds move on and the lions find the living not so easy.

The only thing with black fly, green fly or any other sort of pest is to get spaying before they get established, as Mr Brown would say "prudence" in all things!

Cheers!

 

You could plant some sacrificial nasturtiums nearby. Worked a treat for me last year.

 

Oi! I grow Nasturstiums to eat.:( Maybe I should grow runner beans as a sacrificial plant:lollol:

 

Well exactly. How would a blackfly know?

I once carefully moved dozens of ladybirds from nearby weeds onto my broad beans. It took about 10 minutes for them to carefully move themselves back where they wanted to be.