Portland composts! and fruit flies!!

If you live in the city of Portland, you are well aware of the new “curbside-composting pilot program,” which will soon expand to all single-family homes. If you don’t live in the beautiful city of roses, stick with me anyway, this composting is just a segue into the meat of this post. 


Beginning October 31, we will toss all unwanted foods, i.e. coffee grounds, bones, rotten veggies, meat, and even old pizza boxes, into the green carts we now use for yard waste. The city is providing us with these little kitchen pails to collect scraps in the kitchen that then will be emptied into the yard debris cart.

I picked up this compost pail that is aesthetically more appealing. It can be found at Williams-Sonoma for $29.95. For something I have to look at every day sitting on the kitchen counter, I find it much more pleasing, but that’s just how I roll.

In preparation for this new program, here at chez Portland Peeps we started a little early. We were already pretty good at doing our own composting by giving any leftover veggies to our chickens, so this really isn’t that much of a stretch. I’m all for composting and think everyone should do it anyway. I know the city is trying to cut costs, so I wish them luck with that.


Now we have these...

In case you don’t recognize them, these are fruit flies. Drosophila suzukii. My talented husband photographed them. It’s hard to believe they have all this going on, when in reality they’re the tiniest things with wings ever. He makes them look like something from Empire of the Ants. Huge creatures I would never be able to smack between my hands to kill. 


So does anyone know how in the world to get rid of these little pests? 


Here’s what I’ve tried so far:


Bleach - poured 1/4 cup down the drains for several days in a row. I heard they breed in there.


Fruit - put all fruit into the refrigerator and closed the door tight. They breed in there too. Duh! Why else would they be called fruit flies?


Cleaned - washed all counter surfaces with a mixture of bleach and water.


Still the buggers are flying around my kitchen! Excuse the pun, but they are really bugging me!


Any and all ideas for eliminating them will be greatly appreciated.


Thank you!