On 4/4/08 09:45, in article ,
"®óñ© © ²°¹°-°²" wrote:

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 23:01:26 +0100, Anne Jackson
wrote and included this (or some of this):

The message from ®óñ© © ²°¹°-°² contains these words:
On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 20:20:54 +0100, K wrote
and included this (or some of this):

I shall remove the hardening tomatoes and fly-spray the little beggars
fifthwith.

Why? Wouldn't be best to find out whether they're harmful first?

I've not had them before (and never missed them, either)

I certainly don't need the little critters and I don't need extra
pollinators. They don't look big enough to eat greenfly or slugs,
so they're toast.

If you're about to kill every insect you don't recognise, or can't be
bothered to identify, perhaps gardening isn't the ideal hobby for you?

What a counsel of perfection. Perhaps I should seriously blunt the
edge of my spade in case I harm something in the soil whilst digging.

It's good advice, though, even if you don't want to hear it. Some insects
are extremely beneficial and you would welcome them into your garden or
greenhouse, if you knew what they were. Others aren't and quite rightly,
you want to be rid of them. But in this instance, size doesn't matter.
Although Nematodes probably wouldn't strike you as big enough to eat slugs,
you can use these biological controls and others to achieve that, without
using sprays on the food you intend to consume. There are several web sites
on the subject of biological control which will give you a lot of
information on the goodies and the baddies. Removing the tomatoes to the
outside of the greenhouse *on warmer days* and putting them back in at night
might help because useful predators might eat the insects you want to lose.
Removing the tomatoes, spraying the greenhouse and replacing the tomatoes
may not help at all, if the little flies are attracted to the tomatoes and
go outside and back in, hidden on them!
I don't think you'll ever find a counsel of perfection on here, BTW. Most
of us have been gardening too long and enjoy it too much to consider
perfection either achievable or desirable. Where would the fun be in having
nowhere left to go? But what you will find is a lot of good advice at
varying levels. Whether or not you choose to take it or not is up to you,
so all I can say is "good luck with your gardening". And keep your feet
away from the edge of the spade.....
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'