Fulham Horticultural Society
Founded 1924
I say Tits to Blackfly
By Alan Withers
As you may, or may not already know, I tend to my plot without the help of chemicals (apart from a bit of Bordeaux Mixture on the tomatoes during the Summer, adding the one colour that tends to be missing from an allotment during this period - unless you allow the chicory to flower). Anyway, last year mother nature blessed my broad beans with Black Fly (as she does everyone else’s on the Allotments) and I behaved no differently than I normally do. I let the Harlequin Beetles and Ladybirds do their thing and eat the black fly (in between that other thing that Ladybirds and Harlequins do to multiply themselves), but this year was a little different. The bugs had help. One day I was picking my peas which were planted next to the Broad Beans and there was a commotion which I recognised as the arrival of the Tits to my neck of the woods. They visit my corner about three times a day - early morning, late morning and early evening - to feast on the Aphids and Scale Insects in the Sycamores behind my plot, (another of my bug bears). But the natural equation is wonderful, Sycamores+Aphids = Tits. Two varieties normally come down onto the plot for a visit, the Blue and Great Tits, but this year a third variety decided to pay my plot a visit, the long tailed tits, and came within a metre of me picking my peas, so close in fact that I could see their individual pretty little faces. The Long-tailed Tits travel around the perimeter of the allotments in large groups so I didn’t get just one individual, I got a whole family harvesting the Black Fly while I harvested my peas. You can’t imagine the pleasure I felt, harvesting with such gregarious companions and the honour that I felt had been bestowed upon me by mother nature (keep your OBE’s) for chemical free gardening. So I say to you non-organic gardeners, I’ll keep my Black Fly because they permit interaction with some beautiful and interesting gardening companions!