It's Bugs in the Wine time again

My husband was horrified - well I guess i was a little shook up too. It is really definitely fall now and all the fruit we have been buying and bringing home is alive with wildlife. Yes- the little black flies you see hovering over your grapes might go into the garbage in some homes but we compost them. And we live in a cold climate so we compost with worms in the winter in the basement. In fact we do this year round but right now our compost outdoors has shut down and gone cold and is refusing to take any more peelings so we are using our worm bin a lot more right now.

Anyway we were having a nice glass of wine and the topic came up that I had two flies in my glass. They were paddling around looking for an escape. Like ladies of a certain age, these little flies are very attracted to alcohol.

I knew this was going to be a problem. When I went to dump a recent batch of greens into the worm bin I was overtaken by a "Flock" of little black flies. Yes they could be fungus gnats or shore flies but most likely they are fruit flies. They were too fast to catch. Either way they are way out of control as is usual this time of year. Lets face it - we buy these flies along with our organic produce and we never throw them away - instead we give them a nice warm moist environment and before you know it they have multiplied are are trying to share our glass of wine. The truth is I usually remember to order parasites from a reliable supplier of Biologicals such as Westgro in Calgary or Natural Insect Control in Ontario. This time the fall got away from me and my usual pro-active approach with nematodes was a miss.

All will be well shortly. I am trapping loose flies with the rest of that buggy glass of wine, my nematodes have been ordered and I will be applying them when they arrive by courier on wednesday. Stay tuned.

PS If you have an infested worm bin or a greenhouse with fruit flies or other wildlife order your Steinernema feltiae (Trade names include NEMS -larva parasite and Nemasys). These little guys will not hurt your worms but will do a number on all other larvae in your soil.