The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: northfifeduckling on May 29, 2010, 11:55:47 pm
-
second year round on my gooseberries and I could despair, thought it was just a bad year last time as I'd never had a problem with them before :'( :&>
-
I've got them too - been spending ages squashing them. If you can get this lot then the really destructive numbers don't happen later on. One year we had a wasp nest built in a gooseberry bush and although I couldn't pick any berries (cos I'm a woos) the wasps got rid of the sawflies which didn't come back for several years. We let the hens scratch around under the bushes in the winter which helps too.
-
kerstin, i read a tip which was to put peanuts around the base of the bushes which would attract the tits (cant remember which kind!), they would eat not only the nuts but also the sawflys! have tried it and that, combined with my squishing technique definately seems to have reduced the devastation!
-
This is a pest that takes some getting rid of.squashing the between your finger and thumb is a sure way The eggs are usually in the compost that you mulch the bushes with.Infected compost and you have an infestation.They do not like any of the Thiacloprid sprays Bayer Spray day Doff All in one are worth a try and soaking the ground every night beneath the bushes swells the fruit if it doesn't kill the larvae ??? :farmer:
-
I pick them off and put them in a tub with slugs for the hens and ducks - no waste gardening ;D The time I need to spend on collecting them I could well use for other things...I did wonder why the wild birds didn't find them in the first place, a bit worrying as I do feed them over the winter. We definitely have less robins this year. I'll try the peanuts to alert the tits! :&>
-
Same has happened in a garden I look after near Tewkesbury.
The owner insisted I enclose the soft fruit with netting so the natural predation stopped. The gosgogs leaves have been stripped!
Now they agree that we can let the birds back in. :)
Bern
-
what really bugs me (excuse the pun) is the speed they devastate whole bushes. For weeks we were admiring them and a few days later half the branches have been stripped! :&>
-
I don't think birds do much damage really to goosegogs :D :farmer:
-
I blast my goosegogs with the hose twice a day, seems to have stopped them in their tracks