I spent last night catching up on all the other allotment blogs. During the day, I had noticed black flies all over our broad beans and Dig for Victory showed me what to do - pinch out the tips.I have also heard that a garlic spray can work and will try that one evening if the tip pinching doesn't help.
4 comments:
I've read to be careful with garlic spray as it can burn -- but don't have any experience with this -- just a tidbit to pass along...
If you've been watching The Big Dig (BBC2 - not available in all areas) you will have seen that nicotinic acid will also work. Either boil up some tobacco in a pan or soak some cigarette butts in water. Not pleasant and certainly to be kept away from children but apparently it works!
I pinched out the tips of my broadbeans but the black fly still commeth!
So I tried spraying soapy water on them - but then I spray soapy water on everything when I don't know how to get rid of it. It worked on the greenfly, but it remains to be seen if it will do the trick with blackfly.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's to do with when you do the pinching. My blackfly onset happened to coinside with the beans setting.
Since I de-tipped them, the blackfly problem has been minimal.uo
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