02 September 2009

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.

6 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. Are you sure those moths are not a "Figment" of your imagination?

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  3. Ick for the moths and yum for the fruit!

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  4. We all have to eat. And just remember: The only life kicked out of the Garden of Eden was "human."

    Abraham Lincoln

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  5. i love the smell of figs. Can imagine that the moths are a pain.

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  6. I'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? :-)))

    I 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!

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