The Dreaded Cicadelle
Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.
There's a glut of figs at the moment but there's also a glut of the dreaded cicadelle and it's been here all summer.
The cicadelle pruineuse is a tiny grey moth that covers the wood, the leaves and the fruit - it also leaves a nasty white sticky fluff. However, it doesn't harm the fruit. I won't use a chemical pray and anyway if you spray cicadelle, it simply jumps off and lands on the next plant or tree.
Picking the fruit tho isn't the best fun - dislodge the moths and they fly into your face. Reach for a fig and your hair is covered in this sticky mess.
No matter - the figs are delicious. I'm lucky enough to have a 100-year old fig tree in the garden - it's loaded with fruit so each day I pick them, wash them, and eat them - and I give an awful lot away. And the figs that fall from the higher branches get scoffed by the dogs.
Oh, Jilly, you are fortunate to have figs growing in your yard. Sorry about the moths but at least they leave the fruit for you. I wonder what benefit they get from living on the tree.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure those moths are not a "Figment" of your imagination?
ReplyDeleteIck for the moths and yum for the fruit!
ReplyDeleteWe all have to eat. And just remember: The only life kicked out of the Garden of Eden was "human."
ReplyDeleteAbraham Lincoln
i love the smell of figs. Can imagine that the moths are a pain.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard of the cicadelle pruineuse before. You should go and pick your figs wearing a fly net around your face like they have in Australia. Why don't you ask Sally to send you one? :-)))
ReplyDeleteI LOVE figs and was lucky to come across one on a walk that I took on Sunday. I filled my back pack with them. Yum!