Do you have any questions about pumpkin or fruit flies and how to protect your fruits and veggies? Drop me a comment and I'll get back to you 🌱

@bjeubanks3458

Жыл бұрын

i have flies on my butternut squash flowers. How do i get rid of those flies? Your video mentioned pollinating by hand. How do you pollinate the female flower?

@MySustainabilityJourney

Жыл бұрын

@@bjeubanks3458 if they are just normal flies then I wouldn't worry about them. If anything they are helping with the pollination. If they are fruit flies then you have a problem! As for pollinating them, here is a detailed video I did explaining how to do it - kzread.info/dash/bejne/gYdqtq-sgreapaw.html Hope this helps 🌻

Great to hear a knowledgeable South African’s advice.

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Ah, thank you Lynne 💚 🌱

Massive problem for me and a constant struggle. Unfortunately when growing as many peppers as I do organza bags would not work. I accept a loss of some harvest every year. I like the trap you using, Something I will consider to bring the numbers down. Awesome content, thank u

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I feel your pain having such a niche in peppers. Your best option is probably organza bag mesh cages around your plants which aren't ideal. I've seen your amazing pics on FB and you wouldn't want to cage those beauties up. Hope to bring you more useful info in the future 🌱

Great ideas for squash fruits, im growing witboer, butternut and queensland blue squash for the coming season. All in trays indoors at night due to heavy frosts (lm in gauteng), so l still have time to get some organza bags made up.

@MySustainabilityJourney

11 ай бұрын

Nice! Sounds like you are on your way to growing a really nice amount of winter squash this summer! Hoping you get a massive harvest 🌻

Thank you so much for the advice. 2 seasons ago I had 7 butternuts. 1 was eaten by a mouse, and the rest were all stung. One was so badly maggeotted, it had to be thrown away. This year , after your organza bags and panty hoses advise, I once again had 7 butternut. 1 way eaten by a mouse, the others were not stung at all. I have used the organza bags on tomatoes and strawberries too. Thanks for the great advice. Blessings

@MySustainabilityJourney

Жыл бұрын

Yay, I LOVE feedback like this and that my advice is paying off for others. I am thrilled to hear you are getting good harvests now and that the little bit of extra up-front work kept the fruit / pumpkin fly stings away from your pumpkins and all the other critters off your other crops 💚 🌻

Awesome video. Thanks

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks so much Amy and thanks for your ongoing support 🌱

@amyjanegardner9908

2 жыл бұрын

@@MySustainabilityJourney your videos are great and as we live in Cape Town as well the advice is so relevant

Hi. I find your videos very helpful. I started using paper bags last year and they worked well.

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks so much Branden, really appreciate that 🌱 Yeah I have seen that used quite often. How do you find that hold up to the elements? I am assuming that you are using drip irrigation or have really good soil moisture and no summer rains? Have seen some amazing results with people using paper bags for tomatoes. So interesting!

@brandenhair9052

2 жыл бұрын

@@MySustainabilityJourney Hi. I am up in the wilderness and my garden is very primitive so there is only hand watering with a hose pipe and rain. The paper bags are fine in the rain but you have to keep an eye on the butternut because as they grow they split the bags and you have to put it in a bigger one.

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

@@brandenhair9052 that's awesome! Very envious of your tropical climate in the garden route. Perfect environment for food forests 😁 out of interest sake, how are you Tying the paper bags to the plants?

I am so happy I found this channel! I am following numerous overseas gardening channels, which is great, but struggling to find 100% applicable advice. And not finding all the seeds and products in South Africa. Please give some info an d maybe do a video about Hand pollinating and also, how do you know the flower is pollinated, so that I will know when exactly to put the bag on. I started my vegetable gardening journey about a year ago. Had average success last year. But this year.....I was about to give up, till I found this video. I have been putting organza bags on my buttenuts and some tomatoes. But it seems I am always too late to keep the flies out.

@milydia216

2 жыл бұрын

Nevermind......😃🙈. Just saw your video about hand pollination.

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Hey Milydia, I am so glad you are getting value out of the content I am sharing and I really hope we can get on top of this pesky fruit fly. Stay tuned for late autumn updates on getting ready for all out war against the fruit fly as you need to start getting things ready as early as late autumn already. Now it is over to the winter veggies already - crazy! 🌱

This video would have been really helpful a few weeks ago 😃 Now I'm struggling with powdery mildew 😑

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Oh no, sorry it's a bit late for you 😕 So for me, I have found the Ludwig's Copper Fungicide to work incredibly well for powdery mildew. I spray it once when the plants are little and generally they won't get it, but if they do then usually 1 application is enough. Give that a go and if not, oddly enough I have had quite good success using neem oil. I used it for pests but ended up really working, which is probably down to the oil. Hope you get a handle on it 🌱

Great tips, thank you. How large are the organza bags that you are using?

@MySustainabilityJourney

10 ай бұрын

Thank you so much and I'm so glad to hear you got value from watching this video 💚 I use the medium size which I would guess is about 15cm in height. As this is only temporary until you cover it with a stocking the organza bag doesn't need to be too big, but it needs to be big enough for the fruit to set on the vine before removing it 🌻

I wrap my butternut squash with old newspaper’s and I get 0 stings at no cost

@MySustainabilityJourney

5 ай бұрын

That's awesome! How does it hold up to watering and rain? This is also the only reason why I haven't used brown paper bags because of how they break down when wet. I am keen to hear how that is working for you with newspaper 🌻

Excellent information. I had a very disappointing pumpkin harvest this year, after spending so much on watering; all due to these pesky flies. With my guava tree I have never had success. It has a lot of fruit each year - none of it edible. I have bought and used GF-120, but not successfully. Questions: * Where to buy the organza bags? * Where to buy the plastic fly trap? The stockings is another matter. None of the females in my family wear them - I'll have to ask family & friends 🙂 Thanks again!

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Hello Abel, thanks for your great comment and I am so sorry to hear about your terrible harvest! I have been there and felt the frustration too many times 😔 Personally, 8 have not managed to get GF-120 to work either. I think you need to get the droplet size, application quantity and application interval spot on to get it to work. So, that leads me to what works. I currently use 3x pumpkin fly traps from Livingseeds who are based in JHB. From my networks I heard incredible things about Ceratrap and I will be using this next year to test. Apparently it comes in much larger quantities so you can have it all over the garden and in every fruit tree compared to 2 or 3 individual traps. At least this is what I have been told. As for stockings I luckily don't have that issue. I have a schoolgoing girl whole stockings are always laddering 😂 I am glad I was able to help and please stick around as I will be doing early spring videos on fruit fly traps and what to do when 🌱

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Oh and then the organza bags, you can get them really cheap and in a bunch of different sizes from Chinatown. Craft and material shops are rewy expensive (up to R7 per bag) where I have found them for R4 at a Chinatown 🌱

Last year the pumpkin fly stung the vine of my cucumber and when the maggots grew, from that point onwards my vine died.

@MySustainabilityJourney

Жыл бұрын

That's really interesting Simone. Generally pumpkin flies lay their eggs in fruits as the flesh sustains the larvae as they hatch, so maybe it was a visually impaired fruit fly or it could also have been the cucumber weevil that also lays eggs and produces larvae. Either way, once any form of larvae get into the stem its best to remove the plant and burn it on your next fire (never compost it). I hope you have better success this year 🌻

Great video Craig! So you didn't double up the stocking? Is that because the stocking is quite thick?

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much 🌱 yip, I'm not exactly sure of ladies clothes naming conventions, but I think I may have used leggings? But yes, they are very thick, which is why I only used 1 layer. For normal thin stockings I would Def recommend 2 layers to stop those little pumpkin fly stingers from getting through 🌻

@jolenee1914

2 жыл бұрын

@@MySustainabilityJourney lol. Can you perhaps do a video on powdery mildew? What you spray, when you spray, how much and how often. Also, if you should alternate between bicarb and neem or stick to one. I know you can only make a video when you have the problem - which I hope you don't get, but if you do...

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Absolutely! I will most certainly do one for you on this. Last year I had HUGE issues with powdery mildew, but luckily this year I have had none (fingers crossed), but with the pumpkin and squash family it is literally a matter of time before it arrives. Out of interest sake, for the powdery mildew I got on my beetroot last year I found neem oil to be the most effective. I used a copper fungicide, bicarb, and milk mixture but none of them worked. Only the neem oil did, however this was for beetroot, so I will test all of them on some sacrificial pumpkins to see what works best in our local climate for you.

@jolenee1914

2 жыл бұрын

@@MySustainabilityJourney thanks! I'll give the neem a try.

Lovely video, thank you! I normally bag my spaghetti squash but this spring I have a few patty pan squash. How do I stop these tiny guys from being stung, especially seeing at they are grouped tight among the base of the plant and difficult to get to? Any tips or just use one small bag for each or use one to cover a few?

@MySustainabilityJourney

Жыл бұрын

It's only a pleasure and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment 💚 I must say patty pan's are a challenge for the reason you said, they are just so close together on the plant and get stung when really small. The only thing I have found to work is putting a whole piece of mosquitoe netting over the plant to the ground and then hand pollinate every morning 🌻

Great information Craig, thanks so much! Just a quick question … don’t the fruit need sun to grow and ripen, so wouldn’t the dark coloured stocking prevent this from happening?

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much Monique 🌱 That is a really good question! Luckily the fruits will go to full maturity with a dark colour covering them. They all actually grow under the heavy shade of the leaves and don't get much direct sun exposure as is, so it won't have a big impact. It may slightly change the colour of the skin, but not the taste and maturity of the fruit. There were some great studies done with tomatoes and brown paper bags and they found that completely covered tomatoes matured and had exactly the same colouring as those uncovered. That being said if you use something does doesn't breathe well, like plastic, then you will have big rot issues so it has to be a breathable. I hope this answered your question and helped 😁

@fernandadeehan9466

2 ай бұрын

Thanks for the great video. Do you have a supplier of cheap organza bags you could recommend please?

Its actually squash bugs that sting the stems, a real pest where i live

@MySustainabilityJourney

11 ай бұрын

Yeah, here we have small flies with nasty stingers that make small holes that fill up with maggots that eat the inside of the fruit. A massive pain!

My spaghetti squash fruit are stung way before the flower opens. I will put the organza bags on as soon as I discover a female fruit. How do you cook the under ripe spaghetti squash?

@MySustainabilityJourney

4 ай бұрын

Oh no, it really sucks when this happens! By Jan/Feb there is no point growing new squash or pumpkin, unfortunately 😔 this late into summer the fruit flies are ruthless and as you correctly point out they sting the fruit before the flower even opens! Best to just cut out the plant and get something else into it's place. For the green spaghetti squash, you can treat it as any summer squash like zucchini and patty pan 🌻

Appreciate your channel as I’m also in Cape Town. Trying the organza bag trick but I find the male and female flowers don’t open at the same time. I either have one or two male flowers and female ones still to bloom or vice versa. By the time the females ones open, the male flowers have withered. Could it just be I need to have more plants?

@MySustainabilityJourney

7 ай бұрын

Aw, thank you and thanks for leaving me a comment 💚 This is quite a common issue when growing squash and pumpkins. Unless you are saving seed you don't need to worry about cross pollination so I would suggest having a few plants but also having different varieties. E.g. Zucchini and butternut. The flowers will open at different times and you can cross pollinate them, but you can't save the seed to plant next year. I hope this helps 🌻

@shirleyblaine1671

7 ай бұрын

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will try that and adding more plants. :) @@MySustainabilityJourney

Can you make big organza bags instead of using a stocking

@MySustainabilityJourney

Жыл бұрын

You 100% can, however, just make sure they are big enough to be VERY loose and not touch the fruit. The fruit fly can sting through an organza bag if the bag touches the fruit, which is why I often use 2 of them so they can't sting through. I have found that they cannot sting through stockings, which is why I find them to work so well 🌻

Stupid pumpkin fly are driving me nuts. Ek huil sommer wanneer ek 'n baba pampoen sien vrot.

@MySustainabilityJourney

Жыл бұрын

Yip, these pumpkin flies are incredibly frustrating! I have found that the Ceratrap is by fat the best fruit fly solution here in South Africa so maybe look into those? 🌻

Also, can't you just start off with the stocking and skip the organza?

@MySustainabilityJourney

2 жыл бұрын

You 100% can, but I have personally broken a few fruits off trying to put a stocking on a 1-2cm big fruit as the stocking is a bit more clumsy and bulky to work with. You can be very gentle with the organza bag which just gives the fruit that bit of strength and hardiness it needs to handle a bit more roughness 🌱