Kitchen Garden Forum

I have sowed some dried peas in punnets of compost on kitchen windowsill to get some pea shoots for winter salads and compost is now crawling with mini flies. Would watering with light disinfectant kill them or would this affect the taste of the pea shoots.
Going forward could I prevent this happening by briefly microwaving the next batch of compost first. Only relativelynsmall quantities are involved so this should not be impractical.
The compost was bought in the spring and I still have half an open bag left so am wondering how I.can keep it usable if this is going to happen going forward.

Hello Primrose
I would try a quick whiff of fly/wasp killer from an aerosol can.

John

There's not much you can do about compost flies once they're present in your growing plants. They're usually abundant if the compost is too moist. Yellow sticky traps will nobble the adults, but the larvae and pupae always remain, and it is they who do the damage. Microwaving your compost before you use it is not a bad idea, and there's only one way to find out if it works. I was also going to suggest freezing the compost, which works for clothes moths but I'm not sure how cold tolerant compost flies are. Again, experimentation will answer.

I just realised I've had thes lighters for years though I,m not aware of any damage they do. When I lifted the lid this morning there was a snowstorm of little white flies and millions of what looked like eggs around the edges of the bin.

Do I need really need to do something ?