Kitchen Garden Forum

I have half a row of T&M Runner Bean "Wisley Magic and half a row of my own Runner Bean seed that goes back in the mists of time. The T&M are smothered with black fly, my own seed has nothing on them. Cant spray the T&M as they are also alive with ladybirds, the trouble is they are not eating fast enough.

Hi Shallot Man,
Your last sentence tells the very sad tale that although Lady Birds do eat Aphids the amount of LB's required has to be phenomenal to actually be of any real use to the gardener or more especially the farmer.
I certainly see your dilemma. Even if you squish them you are depriving the Lady Birds of their food. I suppose this is called being caught between a rock and a hard place!
JB.

And I've got half a row of Climbing French beans (Blauhilde & Cobra) , and half a row of runner beans. The Runner beans are infected with black fly yet so far, the French beans are totally free. I wonder if it's a case of colour attracting them, i.e. they're attracted by the red flowers but the purple or white flowers don't stand out so much, so they don't make such a bee-line towards them.

Primrose you might be right, in my mixed bed the blackfly are congregating not on my plants but on the red yellow and orange nasturtiums that I planted for colour and the bees, so I pick off the blackfly nasturtium leaves as I harvest or weed and feed them to the chickens - extra protein for them.

We only grow Nasturtiums to keep the Blackfly off other stuff.

Like the others, I grow nasturtiums next to the beans and the beans are free from blackfly while the nasturtiums are smothered in them. Apart from their colour, perhaps the nasturtiums have more tender stems so its easier to get to the sap.

I grow nasturtiums to put the flowers in my salads.I've just realised that I'm depriving us of the extra protein by washing the insects off the flowers first. What an idiot!

[Seriously, we don't get much blackfly on the nasturtiums - they've usually had their fill of late broad beans.]

LOL Mike, is that a blackfly stuck between your teeth !

Primrose. The whole row is red.