Setbacks

All is not proceeding according to plan in the garden just now. The reason: fruit flies. 

As interesting as they might be for experimental science, I am not super keen on having them in the house. 

It seems that there were eggs lurking in the potting soil that I started the first round of seedlings in. They have multiplied. 

We tried the old standard make a trap with a skinny escape leading to apple-cider vinegar with limited success. 

Then I read somewhere on the internet that they die when sprayed with a solution of water and dish soap. I've also read that dish soap sprayed on plants can keep some pests away, so I figured, what could go wrong?

Well, it turns out quite a lot. By Thursday of this week, quite a few of the seedlings were looking yellow and ill. The sweet banana peppers seemed especially hard hit. Their progress has been disappointing to begin with. They've been in the greenhouse since mid-January, and have yet to develop true leaves. Now they started dropping the leaves that they did have. 

I discontinued using the dish soap, but it may be that it's a good thing we started early, because we may need to start again. The marigolds look O.K. The tomatoes seem to have yellowed a bit, but they haven't lost any leaves, so they may bounce back. 

I started a few more this weekend, though we have run out of toilet paper rolls. 

I think next week will necessitate going to get a bunch of seed starting cups at a store. 

It's March tomorrow. 

In celebration, I've come up with a cunning plan to make a prototype raised bed up near the house that will use chicken-wire to keep off the pests. We don't want to lose our beets like we did last year to marauding squirrels. The problem is that building a cage with 2x2's and chicken-wire is going to be a little pricey. I ordered up enough wire for one bed to start. If it goes well, we'll need more. 

We shall see.