Monday, June 12, 2006

Monday 12th June - Blackflies

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:

Wildside Musing said...

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...

Anonymous said...

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!

Anonymous said...

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.

Greenmantle said...

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