Take back your fruit bowl with these clever strategies.
You’re not alone in your love of seasonal produce: Pesky fruit flies always seem to find their way to your farmer’s market haul before you even get a chance to fully enjoy it. Tired of them taking over? First toss anything overripe, and then try one of these effective remedies to banish them from your kitchen.
1. Unfiltered apple cider vinegar
Remove the cap from the bottle (it doesn’t have to be full — nearly empty will also work). Cover the opening in plastic wrap and secure with a rubber band. Then, poke a hole for the fruit flies to enter. They can’t resist the scent of vinegar, and they won’t be able to exit once they’re inside.
“No matter how hard I try to prevent fruit flies every summer, they seem to always find me. Every year, I Google ‘how to get rid of fruit flies’ and every year, I end up using this tried-and-true method. It’s not pretty, but it is pretty effective,” says Kim at Today’s Creative Blog.
2. Vinegar and dish soap
If you find your fruit flies are impervious to the plastic wrap, try adding three drops of dish soap to a bowl of vinegar, and leave it uncovered. The soap cuts the surface tension of the vinegar so the flies will sink and drown.
3. A paper cone and a piece of fruit
Place a little vinegar and a chunk of very ripe fruit in a jar. Then, roll a piece of paper into a cone and stick it into the jar, placing the narrow opening down. The fruit flies will be drawn in, but won’t be able to get out.
“I learned this method from a friend who used to sell produce, and I think it is easier to put together and more effective than others. Instead of using plastic wrap, I use scrap paper that I can then compost later,” says Tiffany at Nature Moms.
4. Red wine
Like vinegar, fruit flies love the smell of wine. Try leaving out an open bottle with a little liquid — the skinny neck will keep the flies trapped.
5. Milk, sugar and pepper
Everyday Roots blogger Claire likes this method from an Old Farmer’s Almanac. Combine a pint of milk, 4 ounces of raw sugar and 2 ounces ground pepper in a saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes. Then, pour into a shallow dish. The flies will be drawn to the mixture and quickly drown.
6. Aunt Fannie’s FlyPunch!
The chemists in the Health, Beauty and Environmental Sciences lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute were excited to see this new product cross their desks, especially Sabina Burdzovic-Wizemann, who found that it worked better in her home than other homemade remedies she’s tried.
The mixture is natural (the active ingredients are sodium lauryl sulfate and malic acid) and comes in a stand-up pouch. All you have to do is rip off the top, set it on your counter and “count the bodies” (Aunt Fannie has a bit of a sharp tongue).
Copyright to the original publisher Good housekeeping.
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