.......have discovered that ALL my leeks are riddled with onion fly larvae. How did I not notice sooner? Didn't get onion fly last year so didn't look out for it. SOB!!
The onion fly larvae (i.e. maggots) bore their way through the leeks and there can be loads of them all in one leek. I read-up on the little nasties last night and the advice is to dig all the leeks up and destroy them. However! Seeing as they are in literally all my leeks, I've decided to pick through them all and squish all the larvae in a last-ditch attempt to rescue the poor things. I'm not sure if this will work but it's worth a go I think. I spent quite a while yesterday squishing the little bleeders and found more today, so am not holding my breath they'll survive!!
To cheer myself up I thought I'd see how the parsnips have done and dug a couple up - yippee they are really good and made a celebratory roast - roast parsnips (obviously), potatoes, courgette and beetroot. Very tasty.
Tomorrow: another session of maggot squishing.
Gosh you've made me nervous now - I thought leeks were trouble free. I was already fretting about what the caterpillars are up to as I can't get to the plot for a couple of days and now I have something else to worry about...
ReplyDeleteHope you manage to salvage some.
Well, unfortunately it looks like there's no hope - am just going to write a new post about it :o(
ReplyDelete