It takes just 11 days for fruit fly to develop from eggs to adults capable of laying more eggs.

The humid weather has been the catalyst for the sudden surge in damage in home gardens.

Les Waldron is a keen gardener, who takes pride in growing tomatoes and fruit.

He was successful with his harvest of apricots, which finished just before Christmas.

“All our apricots were great. We got heaps of apricots,” Mr Waldron said.

But when the nectarines came due for harvesting last month, they had all been hit by fruit fly.

Mr Waldron said they were a good size, but every single one was affected.

There was heavy rain just before the nectarines were due to be picked and considerable humidity.

Maureen Bahr is an avid home gardener who produces a variety of vegetables in both summer and winter.

She pulled out all her tomatoes last week because of the fruit fly infestation.

“We really haven’t had any (fruit fly) other years,” she said.

“I put my baits out at the end of July last year.”

She had 13 bottles of bait scattered around her garden and picked a lot of tomatoes early, but then came the fruit fly surge.

John Sanders had “beautiful, big tomatoes”, but pulled all his plants out three weeks ago.

Mr Sanders said his tomatoes were the biggest and healthiest plants he has grown for years.

It was only after picking tomatoes and taking them inside that he realised the fruit fly infestation was so bad.

The fruit began weeping within 30 minutes and a check showed they were damaged.

Mr Sanders said he was growing cherry tomatoes which have not been hit by the fruit fly.

“I have pulled the capsicums out,” he said.

Retired builder Dave Murray heavily pruned his peach tree to get larger fruit.

“I got a beautiful crop of good looking yellow peaches,” he said.

“I did not eat one. I had to strip the whole tree.”