Every year usually make close to 100 jars of raspberry jam. This year the gooseberry bush was infested for the first time by red currant fruit flies also known in there earlier stage gooseberry maggots. We ended up losing the whole gooseberry bush and it also wiped out the entire raspberry patch, going to have to double down on the wild huckleberry jam. Wondering if anyone else has dealt with this problem before and what they have done. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry but the black on dark grey doesn't work very well. I gave up on it even though it's an interesting post.
Every year usually make close to 100 jars of raspberry jam. This year the gooseberry bush was infested for the first time by red currant fruit flies also known in there earlier stage gooseberry maggots. We ended up losing the whole gooseberry bush and it also wiped out the entire raspberry patch, going to have to double down on the wild huckleberry jam. Wondering if anyone else has dealt with this problem before and what they have done. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
No problem Kootenay, in answer to your post I have never experienced that particular problem but have suffered wasp damage to soft fruit in the past. I put out some serious wasp traps (they also trap flies) around this time of year in an effort to wipe them out. If there are too many survivors by the time the soft fruit is gone they will turn on my bee hives and I can't have that.
Used to get the slugs bad, broke up egg shells around the garden every year and haven’t had them in the garden again.
I never heard that one ...slugs do not like egg shells??? That's a new one to me...but thanks. Watcherchris.
The slugs cut the bottom of them open on the egg shells and will avoid that area and then every year turn the soil over and the old egg shells just help fertilize the soil over the winter.
My main problem with gooseberries (and my 15 orchard trees) has been fungus, bacterial or virus in addition to the insects. Mid summer, Japanese beetles ate 90 percent of the leaves while I was on vacation. Since then, he new leaves have many spots from the infections. In late July, I sprayed with "fruit tree spray" (a mix of insecticide and fungicide) and now the leaves look fairly good. Bottom line- I am going to spray more often.
Do you prune them to open them up to allow greater air circulation through them? I find it helps a little. Some varieties of tree are much more susceptible to mold and insect attack, I know you have to have much more mold resistant rootstock in the US than we need in the UK..some of your fungal infections are really bad.
I have not done much pruning yet. We just bought this home (25 acres) 2 years ago, so the Dwarf trees are barely 8 feet tall. This winter, I will prune some and I do like the "vase" method to keep the tree shorter. Since I'm 75, I do not want to be crawling around in these trees. Usually I spray when I see a problem. But the University of Missouri Extension says to spray much oftener - like every two weeks. And now there is a bacterial (bt) spray for the Japanese beetle that I will try.
