One of the things I have to deal with during bottling season is lots of flies. I like to do most of the bottling outside in the back yard to keep the mess to a minimum and keep the heat outside. But that means lots of going in and out of the house- so usually the door gets left open quite a bit. Open door equals millions of flies. I had been told by my niece that if you put a baggie with a few pennies and some water in it, it would keep out the flies. Sounded funny, but after dealing with so many flies this year, I decided to try it. Hey it only cost a few pennies right?
Well to my pleasant surprise it worked! I just put about 4 pennies in a plastic bag, and filled it half way with water and zipped it so the water wouldn't leak out. Then I hung it on the out side of the back door. Then I deliberately left the door open while doing salsa. There were no flies in the house at the end of that day, so I kept leaving the door open that week just to see, and we have not had a fly problem since! It seemed to work for us, I have no idea why or what the science is behind it, but it worked. There have been millions of flies still outside, so it's not like they all died off all of the sudden.
So if you have a fly problem, or your doors seem to always get left open for all the flies to come in as they please, try it! It only cost a few pennies, right? If you do, please let me know your results as I would like to see if it works well for other people too.
Happy Gardening!
Happy Gardening!
That’s pretty much amazing but it doesn’t make sense… Or should I say “Cents”… Ha ha ha…
ReplyDeleteLOL, wow, okay, let me explain what's going on here. Your niece ran into someone who practices Feng Shui. One of the "cures" for bad luck is to place a glass of water with salt and coins. The salt dissolves over time. This can be placed at the doors or windows for protection. It can be sometimes hard and awkward to explain to a westerner what they are doing there- someone who might mock your culture or spiritual beliefs. Telling them that it keeps the flies out explains it away.
ReplyDeleteThat is funny. I can't find anything about it online. But if that is the case -that it is for bad luck, I must have been having very bad luck with flies, and it worked! Because there was a HUGE difference when I put that up in September. There must be something to that Feng Shui.
ReplyDeleteActually, I've heard that it is the reflective quality of the refracted pennies in the water - this is visually confusing to flies and they cannot enter because they cannot see the way in.
ReplyDelete