This is kind of just to brag, but also I post this news because of my astonishment. I garden in lots of random spaces and gardens throughout town. In the area, most farms are afflicted with carrot
root maggot and
apple maggot. There is one of my gardens where those magically didn't appear. And still, no
maggots.
There's even a hawthorn in the same
yard, which often harbors the
apple maggot. And to top it off, terrible apple 'hygiene' has been the norm for years: apples rotting all over the ground through the winter.
The absence of carrot maggot is also a mystery. Everywhere else seems to have it. And I walk back and forth all the time to carrot-maggot farms, carrying soil on my shoes. Of
course, after I started
gardening there there's always been a healthy amount of benificial insect attractors flowering, and much diversity. But this place has remained pristine before I rolled around.
Big urban lot. Mowed lawn. Mounds of car parts and garbage. Beer cans up in the
trees (someone threw them there long ago). And no freakin' maggots! If we can figure this one out it will give us some heads up to how to keep more areas maggot free.