We have lost nearly all our Capsicums & about 60% of our Tomato fruit over the last few weeks so today we put up 6 traps with 3 different types of bait to see what works best...
I read up on a few different ideas for bait on the net & came across a fair few differing opinions as what works the best... I thought we would use the 2 main ingredients that appear to be the most popular, 100% fruit juice & Banana Skins...
To begin with, Some holes were put into some empty 2L white vinegar bottles (we use it as a fabric softener)...2 sets of bottles were filled with differing quantities of juice & the 3rd set had ½ a pureed Banana skin mixed with a cup & a ½ of water...
A tsp of bakers yeast was put in each bottle with a few drops of washing liquid to break the surface tension of the bait... This allows the flies to become trapped in the liquid...
One set of each mix were then placed out on opposite side of the garden near the different lots of Tomatoes to see what effect they will have on the fly strike rates...
Weekly Harvest...The Cucumbers are going really well & are not being affected by the powdery mildew like the other Cucurbits this year... B? & Koo got a few shots of 1 poor Cue that got caught in the wire...
Anyhoooo... This week we have picked Cucumbers, Mini Roma Tomatos, Chillies, Shallots, Radishes, Carrots, Eggplants, Strawberries, Mixed Herbs, Beans, Silverbeet, the first of the Kohlrabi & 3 eggs a day... Fairly much the same as the past few weeks...
General Happenings...
The beans will probably get pulled this week & the vacant space will be prepared to have some Dragon Carrots go in... The Feral Pumpkin has had a few more shoots clipped off & a couple of female flowers hand fertilised this week... Looks like it was successful at this point... Is interesting to note that these pumpkins are the only variety not to get any trace of powdery mildew **Knocks on wooden coffee table** this season... The Tomatoes have had a major pruning as they havent had much attention over the last couple of weeks with all the rain we have had... As I said before, we have lost a fair bit of fruit due to fly strike but hopefully the traps will make a big enough dent in the fly population...
Rainfall...
Since the last rainfall post 11 days ago we have had 232.4mm of rain... With a total of 368.2mm so far this month, it looks like we will fall short of the recorded wettest December (1941-2008) which was 394.4mm in 1991...
It looks like we have escaped flooding but our thoughts are with those who haven been so lucky...
If your interested you can donate to the Premiers Flood Relief Appeal.....
Have a great one all...
: )»
Categories:
Aquaponics,
fly,
traps
