Flies on a new raised bed?

[country-girl]

Hi everyone,
We recently decided to grow our own as my husband has just taken his redundancy. Growing veg is totally new to us.Anything related to growing is so we are trying make a go of it and learning as we go along.
We have just finished our first raised bed.
Please excuse my newbieness but as we stood back to admire our work we discovered lots of flies all over the soil. Is this normal?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

[Adrastea]

Hi, it depends on your soil.
If you have added organic matter like compost / manure then these things tend to house or attract flies for a bit because of the warm, moist environment and the smell. You can find maggots in manure bags that have been left unused for a long time so I wouldn't worry too much. Compost that hasn't been sterilised also tends to house fungus gnats and these run over the surface of the compost.

If you garden organically, over time you'll get a balance where spiders will move in. It happens in my greenhouse as I get quite a few flies in there and lots of spiders moved in and set up home. personally I wouldn't worry... there's much worse things to find on your soil!

[country-girl]

Hi Adrastea,

Thank you.

I have just googled fungus gnat and yeah that looks just like the little blighters!!!!

Is it possible to get rid of these?

[zazen999]

Just plant out your veg and leave them be. They will go in time and won't harm the soil.

[country-girl]

Just plant out your veg and leave them be. They will go in time and won't harm the soil.

Thanks zazen999

Thats what i needed to hear. It was a bit of a concern. I will look forward to the planting stage without the worry of loosing everything.