Carrot fly tips

[Rookiegardener]

Can anyone recommend a good insect mesh to prevent carrot flies please? I have a raised bed with spinach, peas and carrots. I was going to cover the entire bed. Does this sound practical? My carrot seedlings are just sprouting through. Is this too late and has the damage of not having a cover already been done?

Thank you in advance

Usual advice is 1) raise that carrots above ground - the flies keep fairly close to the ground 2) disturb them as little as possible so as not to release their scent.

Since the theory is that the fly come in sideways flying at low level, I wonder whetehr a solid or very fine mesh barrier round the bed would be sufficient? No need to have one over the top?

I have a mesh barrier to protect from animals but I thought a cover would be good as I need to protect them from aphids too. They destroyed all my broad bean plants and I didn't get a single bean sadly.

What did you get on the broad beans - usually they get blackfly (black aphids). Sowing either very early or very late helps to avoid them, and whenever you sow, once the beans have got up to height, remove the tender tips - I'm told you can cook and eat them, but got round to taking them off before the aphids arrived.

I don't think blackfly go for carrots. Greenfly do, but aren't usually a big problem.

In the longer term, gardening organically seems to solve a lot of problems - tricky in the first few years, but if you hold your nerve, the predator numbers pick up, and although you always have pests, they're not often in enough numbers to cause a problem.

On Gardeners World last week it said planting mint around your carrots helps, apparently the minty smell hides the carrot smell .

I got green aphids @MereDintofPandiculation. Hundreds and hundreds. I even used a pesticide designed for them but no avail. They destroyed my hibiscus and orchids too.

I'd love to grow organically. I'm just starting out this year so I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time.

Thank you @Pinkywoo. I'm ordering some mint seeds anyway so that's brilliant.

I planted a ring of marigolds around my carrot bed this year - not a whisper of a carrot fly! They hate the scent apparently.

No such luck with the fucking aphids unfortunately. They've been an absolute nightmare this year.

I put chopped garlic on my raised bed, no pests at all!

@sadpapercourtesan me and the aphids have a bitter feud. After they killed my hibiscus and orchids I can't forgive them . I was even considering collecting ladybirds just to get rid of the buggers.

@CostaCosta I will try this. I'll just leave it over my insect mesh. The holes are easily big enough for aphids to get through so I need to think of something else

My neighbour, an experienced gardener, keeps carrots under fleece spread over metal hoops for the whole of their growing season.

@Rookiegardener they have killed all my nasturtiums, a beautiful ribes bush and several of my pumpkin plants I managed to save the roses, with much spraying of washing up liquid, but fucking hell they have been bastards this year! Hundreds and hundreds of the revolting things.

@sadpapercourtesan oh dear! I'd be livid. I wonder why there's so many of them about this year. They ate through all of my friends bell pepper plants. They barely made it past seedling stage. I fear for my roses now .. I didn't know they like them too. I was actually gifted a bouquet of flowers and every night woke to find entire leaves eaten off (they'd obviously migrated after demolishing my orchids and found the bouquet).