Little Black Flies on Houseplants

Do you ever get those nasty little black flies on your houseplants? Clouds of the buggers fly up whenever you disturb the plant. They're really gross.

They're called sciarid flies, fungus gnats or mushroom flies. And you've only yourself to blame; they eat rotting vegetable matter, such as the rotting roots of your chronically over-watered houseplants. The flies don't do any damage to your plant. If an infected plant dies it's usually from the over-watering that attracted the gnats in the first place. The flies are the symptom, not the cause.

Fortunately, the treatment is simple and completely organic. First of all let the poor old plant dry out. It won't harm the plant to do this, in fact it will probably do it a power of good. But mainly you're trying to disrupt the gnats' life cycle. The eggs take about a week to hatch, so if you can keep the soil dry for a couple of weeks you should be able to kill the already-hatched larvae by desiccating them, any larvae that hatch from the eggs after a week will also desiccate, and the adults will have no rotting roots to feed on so they should die too. So you can see that two weeks of dryness should sort the problem out.

If you feel you need an extra line of attack you could get some sticky yellow traps from your garden centre. I don't think they have a proprietary name, just ask for "sticky yellow fly traps for houseplants". These attract the flies - apparently it's the yellow colour that attracts them, not any chemical or scent or anything. And the stickiness is just glue that sticks the flies down and traps them - there's no pesticide in the traps. So this is an organic approach that should help get rid of the nasty little blighters.

Once you've eliminated the flies you might want to put a physical barrier on top of the soil to deter them coming back. An inch-thick layer of sand or fine gravel will prevent females from laying their eggs in the soil.

Finally - STOP OVER-WATERING YOUR POOR PLANTS! Always feel the soil before you water them and if the soil is moist then don't add any more water. Don't let the plant sit in a saucer full of water all day, or worse still for days and days. If there is water in the saucer half an hour after watering, pour it away. Different plants need different watering regimes, so don't water all your plants at the same time. If your moisture-loving Boston fern is looking crinkly round the edges then give it a drink, but you shouldn't water your drought-tolerant Easter cactus at the same time every time. Plants in great big pots need less frequent watering than plants in little pots, although obviously they need more water each time.

Good luck with the sciarid flies, if you have them. And if you don't, give yourself a pat on the back for not over-watering your plants.

My Bees Survived the Winter

I went to check on my bees today to see if they survived the winter. I would have been very happy if one of my two colonies had survived, as I could quickly build back up to two colonies if I had at least one. But I was braced to lose them both, and have to buy bees this year. My guru, Arnie, lost six out of his ten colonies this winter, and if he can lose so many I didn't rate my own newbie chances.

To my great joy, both colonies survived! One is very strong, with loads of healthy active bees and lots of honey stores. The other colony is much weaker; few in numbers but active and with honey stores - but it has suffered terrible mouse damage. I haven't seen anything like it. Some mice made a nest in the brood box and chomped their way through honey, wax, and woodwork. The buggers! The bees must have been too drowsy and perhaps too low in numbers to attack the mice. The mice have cleared off now the weather is warmer and the bees are more active, but they've made a terrible mess. I didn't take my camera to the apiary so I can't show you the damaged hive. But I brought some stored wax combs home to clean them up. The mice have had a good munch on those too, and that's what you can see in the photo.

I'm going to take off the honey that's there and extract it, so I'll have my own honey soon! I'll melt down the damaged wax, fix up the damaged frames and give my bees new frames with new wax foundation to work on. So I'll have my own wax soon, too. Then I'll feed my bees to build them up good and strong so they'll have plenty of workers ready to collect the spring nectar when the flow is strongest. If there is any sign of varroa I'll treat them with Apistan, a thymol-based anti-varroa treatment. That's why I've got to take the honey off, because the Apistan would contaminate it.

I'm very grateful for the expert help of my guru Arnie. He also helped me compile a shopping list so I can get everything I need to get my colonies back on track. And I'm grateful for Sam's help. He was feeling quite perky by the afternoon (he was off school with a cough and a temperature) and wanted to come and see the bees, so he suited up and came with us. He wasn't at all bothered when the bees flew around him and landed on him, even on his veil right in front of his eyes. He had a good close look and was very interested in the mouse damage. Maybe he'll be a beekeeper when he grows up.

Flipping mice! Eating all my honey! Grrrr!!

There's a Rat on Mi Bird Table, What Am I Gonna Do?

Dad (Bill in Ballaugh) has been enjoying feeding the birds and watching them from his kitchen window. But he phoned me up for advice when he saw a rat helping itself to the bird food.

The chances are he's always had rats in his garden. He just hasn't spotted one before. He lives on a hillside in rural Ireland, surrounded by small dairy farms. The landscape will be full of rats, and it's OK. It's probably also full of field mice, foxes, squirrels, bats, rabbits, hares and all sorts of lovely things. If he saw any of those in his garden he'd be delighted, but he's not so keen on the rat. I don't blame him - if I saw a rat I'd wonder if it might come in the house, where it definitely would not be welcome. I wouldn't welcome squirrels or bats etc. in the house either. But still, I don't think spotting a rat in your garden is cause to panic.

There's no need to stop feeding the birds. But there are steps he can take to try to make sure the birds get the food and the rat does not:

• Feed on the bird table, not on the floor.


• Rat-proof the bird table - an inverted cone of metal or chickenwire, or one of those big round tins you get chocolates in at Christmas, inverted and attached round the post, might stop rats climbing up.


• Only feed enough for one day. Feed in the morning, and clear up any leftover food at night. Birds don't come to the birdtable at night so this doesn't deprive them of anything. But it deprives the rat of a midnight snack. I know dad saw his rat in the daytime, but it could have been visiting the table at night for weeks before he saw it.


• I wonder if those squirrel-proof bird feeders also keep rats out? I've seen a spinning bird-feeder - the weight of a squirrel or a rat causes it to spin faster and faster, flinging the unwanted mammal right off. The video is hysterical. I think if I had one I'd be praying for squirrels and rats to vsit it, just for the laugh.

Natural Fly Control

I recently read a tip about fruit flies and knew I had to try it. You pour an inch of cider vinegar in a glass, and a bit of washing up liquid.

I tried it, and within 12 hours there was a layer of dead flies on the bottom of the glass. It's a bit gross, I know, but it's better than catching the damn things in a glass of wine you weren't finished drinking.

Green Fly Control

Not GREENFLY control, although they're a pest as well. I'm talking about fruitflies, mainly. I left a bag of rhubarb in the kitchen when we went away on holiday and when we got back the kitchen was full of fruitflies. I don't really want to use poison to eliminate them, so instead I got rid of the rhubarb and anywhere else they could live, such as the compost bucket, and hung up flypapers.

If you're not familiar with flypapers, they're incredibly sticky strips that you hang up. As soon as a fly blunders into one, it gets stuck for good. Frankly, they're a bit gross, but they're better than having flies everywhere.

One final thing - under no circumstances allow small children to "help mummy with the dusting" anywhere near them. Last year Sam was playing with my genuine ostrich feather duster and got it tangled with the flypapers. By the time I had cut all the sticky bits off my duster, it was so badly maimed I was forced to do the merciful thing.

Bloody Birds

I'm using shredded paper instead of straw to keep my strawberries off the ground. That seems to be stopping the slugs, but now the bloody birds are eating my ripe strawberries. I need to net the strawberry patch now to stop the blighters getting in. Any experience on netting strawberry patches?

Birthday Week - Statistics

(Quick mouse update - Ed laid a trap, baited every day with peanut butter but not set, for a week. Every day Mr Mouse ate the butter. After a week, Ed set the trap. Next day the trap was untouched, peanut butter not eaten. Day after that, peanut butter gone, trap sprung, but no mouse. I think we're dealing with Pinky and The Brain)

As part of Bean-Sprouts birthday week, I've rounded up some of the statistics and numbers from the previous year:

• over 30,943 visitors have viewed the site this year (see the counter at the very bottom of the page for the latest figure)
  


• They left 1,428 comments


• I wrote 336 posts


• This blog is ranked 74 out of 5000 in the Brit Blog charts (top 1.5%)


• It is ranked 39,305 out of 77 million by Technorati (top 0.5%)


• 117 blogs link to this one


• We've been linked to by national newspapers The Times Online and The Scotsman

This is all just unabashed showing off, because I'm really pleased with how this blog has grown in just one year. I hope I can continue to write regular interesting content for the next twelve months, and I hope you'll all keep reading and commenting.

What's Decomposing?

(In homage to http://www.compostbin.blogspot.com/)

We get our hair cut by a friend who comes to our house every few weeks. The kids come into the kitchen one at a time, then when they're shorn they can go back to watching TV or whatever they were doing before. It beats trying to keep them under control at a hairdresser's shop.

We end up with a big pile of hair on the floor, and this is another bonus of having our hair cut at home. The cuttings go on the compost heap where they decompose just like all the other organic material we put there.

Human hair is said to deter pests such as rabbits, moles and deer - shy creatures who avoid the scent of humans. Put handfuls of hair in net bags and tie them to trees and fences around the garden. If you need more hair than you can personally provide, you may be able to scrounge some from your local barber shop. I can't vouch for this tip personally as I don't suffer from mammalian garden pests, and I doubt it works on sassy critters like mice who come right into human houses.

Seen Him!

It wasn't a rat, it was a mouse. And it was sitting on the carpet in Sam's bedroom bold as brass, then it ran behind the toy boxes when it saw me. That's great for two reasons. First, I'd much sooner have mice in the house than rats. And second, we now know where to put the trap - behind the toy boxes in Sam's room.


Sorry Andrew, I take your humane arguments on board but it's in my actual house, it's a fire hazard, a vector for disease, and I don't feel any qualms about getting rid of it in the most effective and efficient way I know how. In fact it was my husband Ed, a strict vegetarian, who bought the traps and set them. Maybe now I can persuade him we should get a cat.

Humane Pest Control

Andrew made some interesting comments about humanely dealing with rodent problems.

... if we're trying to be eco-friendly, shouldn't we be trying to do this to all our furry friends, not just the pretty ones?? ... please please please save all the envirmonment, not just the cuddly bits!!

Point taken. But I don't think "eco-friendly" means the same thing as "kind to animals". Some people belong to both camps, but some belong to just one or the other. And sometimes the two ideas clash. For example there was a story in the news recently about whether it is ethical to hand-rear a polar bear cub rejected by its mother, or whether it should be allowed to die, since that would have been his fate in the wild.

I think Andrew his the nail on the head when he said:

I think we also need to remember, with our ever increasing urban sprawl, that it's us that have invaded their environment, not the other way around.

It opens up a can of worms when humans start interfering with nature. If you found an abandoned polar bear cub in the wild, perhaps it would be an easier decision to leave it to die "as nature intended", but since it was born in a zoo so is already in an unnatural situation, where do you draw the line?

If rats tried to set up home in a fox's den, would the fox deal with them humanely, or would it just kill them? Obviously, in nature when two species clash the matter is resolved swiftly and mercilessly. But it's different when it involves humans for two reasons. First, we are just so much more effective than other animals at what we do. No other species has ever had such a massive imapct on the planet and every other organism in it, because of the technology we have created. And secondly because we are intelligent, we ought to be able to predict the outcome of our actions and behave in a way that does not lead to irreversible damage and destruction, if only for selfish reasons: we want out own species to be able to survive.

So where does that leave me and my rat problem? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Rats!

One of the advantages of living in the countryside is watching all the wildlife right on your doorstep. One of the disadvantages is when the wildlife crosses your doorstep and comes right inside your house.

We've heard scrabbling and gnawing sounds from the space in between the downstairs ceiling and the upstairs floor for the last couple of nights. Ed went out and got a few traps (the old-fashioned Tom and Jerry type), but we're not sure where to put them to best effect.

I'll keep you posted about our progress in getting rid of these pests. In the meantime if anyone has any experience or tips we'd be glad to hear them.