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Juicy Palisade peaches, tasty Rocky Ford cantaloupes…We wait all summer for the harvest of these Colorado delights. But with the summer’s harvest, comes a less welcome crop: the annual swarming of fruit flies.
Fruit flies can lay up to 500 eggs at a time, notes Real Simple magazine. “The entire lifecycle from egg to adult takes only about eight to ten days.” While they often deposit their eggs near ripening food, fruit flies also lay eggs in sink drains, garbage disposals, empty bottles and more.
To control this problem, it’s important to eliminate their breeding grounds. Larva can only survive in moist, decaying organic matter. To remove this opportunity, be sure to keep all produce refrigerated and all garbage cans and recycling bins wiped free of any food bits or spilled drinks.
As adult flies emerge from the larvae stage, you can also use traps to catch them. Professionally made traps can be purchased at the hardware store. You can also make them yourself, following these steps recommended by Real Simple:
- Form a cone-shaped funnel with a piece of regular-sized paper. Seal it with tape.
- Place it in a clean jar.
- Put a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar or a slice of ripe banana into the jar.
- Place these traps on counters and wherever else you are seeing the fruit flies. The flies will be attracted to the food in the jar and, once in, will find it hard to fly out.
- Congratulate yourself on a job well done by sitting back and sinking your teeth into one of those amazing Palisade peaches!