That little pest that really annoys me is the Carrot Fly: A creature that is a member of the Psilidae family, also called “Rust Flies.” In addition to eating carrots, they can also be found in: celery, parsnips, and parsley. It seems to me that they are out to get my harvest, whatever I do.

To understand them, the place to start is to know what they do. The fly lays its eggs at the base of the plant, they hatch and start eating the closest food, which is your crop. The fly attacks the seedlings by their smell

There are two ways to prevent this, both trying to make the harvest unpleasant for the fly.

One way to do this is to soak the sawdust in paraffin and spread it between the rows.

Another idea is to spread wood ash over the entire seedbed.

However, the carrot fly has a major disadvantage, which is that it cannot rise more than a meter from the ground. Using this handicap is a much better way to grow a good crop of carrots.

Again, there are two ways to do it:

One is to make a three-and-a-half foot barrier around the seedbed with wool or horticultural netting. I tried this and found that it is not that easy to maintain the barrier due to wind and rain causing it to collapse.

The way I use it is to plant my carrots in tubs or troughs and put them on a bench. A friend of mine puts his on the roof of his garage. We both have good crops of carrots every year.

the celery fly

The celery fly is a very different creature than the carrot fly; they can fly and have green eyes. The larva of this fly is 7mm long, while the larva of the carrot fly is 9mm long, so if you don’t see the two together in the larva stage, it’s hard to tell the difference.

Again, the best way to deal with this pest is to make the celery fly go away and feed elsewhere by making the foliage unsightly. This is best done by dusting the crop frequently with equal parts lime and old soot. Lime should be finely pulverized and dusting done when the foliage is wet or dew damp, so that the soot-lime mixture adheres to the foliage.

It really is worth doing something about this pest because the females of this highly destructive fly are more prolific in laying eggs. The hatching larvae make their way into the celery foliage tissues and absolutely kill the crop.

The celery fly also attacks parsnips. the crop will show erratic lines on the leaves along with brown patches. You can save your crop by taking the leaves and burning them.

If you wish, I’m sure you can buy some kind of chemical spray to treat the ‘fly problem’, however I prefer the garden without chemicals.