On a radio gardening program, an old gardener rang in with this tip for
combatting fruit fly in tomatoes. He hammers in a sturdy stake and plants
two tomato seedlings alongside it in September. At the same time, he
has some garlic growing nearby. By the time the tomatoes are fruiting the
garlic is ready so he pulls it up and hangs it on the stake. I think he
said 4 corms per stake. He reckons that with the garlic there he has no
trouble with fruit fly in his tomatoes. Might be worth a try.
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)

mmm g'day john,

dunno mate spose everythings worth a try hey? i usually don't have any
garlic around when tomato season is on the go but maybe you could do
something next season lets us know hey, might be a whole lot more
pallatable than the diesel wick bottles hey lol.

but for me mate if it's good homegrown garlic i reckon i'd be eating
it love me garlic, actually a little whitey before we've just planted
around 600 give or take garlic corms/bulbets/clovets (hard-necks &
soft-necks) whatever, hoping to turn a dollar or 2 next spring as the
only garlic in shops up here is that polluted chinese stuff, current
organic retail price for garlic in sydney 30+ bucks.

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gardenlen1/

my e/mail addies have spam filters you should know what to delete before you send.

Garlic works for a lot of things, but I dont know about this one. I do have
a book that says not to plant garlic near your tomatoes. Hanging near them
might be OK.

Dwayne

"John Savage" wrote in message
om...
On a radio gardening program, an old gardener rang in with this tip for
combatting fruit fly in tomatoes. He hammers in a sturdy stake and plants
two tomato seedlings alongside it in September. At the same time, he
has some garlic growing nearby. By the time the tomatoes are fruiting the
garlic is ready so he pulls it up and hangs it on the stake. I think he
said 4 corms per stake. He reckons that with the garlic there he has no
trouble with fruit fly in his tomatoes. Might be worth a try.
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)

len gardener writes:
dunno mate spose everythings worth a try hey? i usually don't have any
garlic around when tomato season is on the go but maybe you could do
something next season lets us know hey, might be a whole lot more
pallatable than the diesel wick bottles hey lol.

grin I'd forgotten about your diesel luminares, Len. Anyway, with the
price of oil skyrocketting, those diesel wicks might soon be too expensive
for the home gardener to use!

I don't grow tomatoes--currawongs turn the fruit into empty green shells!

but for me mate if it's good homegrown garlic i reckon i'd be eating
it love me garlic, actually a little whitey before we've just planted
around 600 give or take garlic corms/bulbets/clovets (hard-necks &
soft-necks) whatever, hoping to turn a dollar or 2 next spring as the
only garlic in shops up here is that polluted chinese stuff, current
organic retail price for garlic in sydney 30+ bucks.

Good luck with your new venture. Growing garlic would have one thing in
its favour: it should be pretty much bug free!!!!
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)

lol john,

yeh gotta get rid of those currawongs kindly of course.

and yep apart from throw a bit of water at 'em nuthin' will eat 'em
not even the hares, there's no accounting for neighbours goats but
hey?

anyway you could aalways crack you'r own diesel from old deep fryer
fat hey dunno if it would work like that stuff outa the ground but
then a few 600ml empty coke bottles with some diesel in would probably
not breaak the budget hey.

you know when you crack you're own diesel you get soap as a bi-product
think about it. no black exhasut pipes either and onlyn the faint
smell of fish n chips or do-nuts chuckle.

take care mate

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gardenlen1/

my e/mail addies have spam filters you should know what to delete before you send.

len gardener writes:
anyway you could aalways crack you'r own diesel from old deep fryer
fat hey dunno if it would work like that stuff outa the ground but snip
think about it. no black exhasut pipes either and onlyn the faint
smell of fish n chips or do-nuts chuckle.

Well, that's no use, Len! The diesel might chase away the fruit flies, but
if it attracts all the neighbourhood cats to dig up your garden looking for
that fish what's the good??

And as for a whiff of hot donuts. groan I've put on an extra half kilo
just thinking about it.

I do know that bees hate the smell of kerosene, and with diesel being a
similar fraction this aversion may apply equally to diesel. So it could
be that nearby crops requiring pollination by bees might be not be well
pollinated where you have diesel wicks set out to repel the fruit flies.
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)