Kitchen Garden Forum

I've suddenly found that I've having an invasion of fruit flies on my semi ripe and green tomatoes.
They're stored on sheets of newspaper on trays in the living room and they'rere starting to become very unpleasant.
I'm inspecting the trays daily to remove any recently split or otherwise damaged tomatoes.
Any idea what I can do to get rid of them as the darned things are migrating into the kitchen now?
I don't have any potted plants in the room in which they could be breeding.

I'd chuck them in the compost heap.

me too, sorry

Such a waste ! Couldn't' t bring myself to do that, at least not without trying for a solution first. There must be about 12 lbs of perfectly good tomatoes there!

I'Ve washed and dried them all overnight, put them on fresh newspaper on the trays and so far the fruit flies seem to have disappeared. Whether this is a temporary respite I don't know but will wait and see what happens over the next 24 hours.

I've just replaced all the lavender fragrance moth killer sachets in my wardrobes. Moth apparently hate the smell of lavender so maybe fruit flies do too, if they return I'll put a sachet near the trays and see if that has any effect.

I think a big batch of chutney making may be the best bet. I never seem able to totally get rid of them in my kitchen as there is always fruit of some sort around. A couple usually happily kill themselves overnight if I leave a wine glass with a drop in it on the kitchen counter overnight.