Their apricots, plums, plumcot, figs, raspberries, tomatoes and peaches have all been destroyed by the Queensland Fruit Fly.

It is the second year the fruit fly has taken hold of their backyard orchard.

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Bendigo East gardener Nicole Porter faced her third year battling with fruit fly this summer.

It was "devastating" and "heartbreaking" to have to discard the produce she's spend the year tending, she said.

"The fruit will look fine and edible on the outside, then you either bite into it and break it open and it’s brown and mushy in the middle," she said.

"You spend all year looking after these fruit trees expecting to get yummy fruit ... and you have to put them into bags and throw them away."

Queensland fruit fly has broken out in Bendigo over the past three summers. It has been declared endemic to Victoria.

The fruit fly attacks fruit and certain vegetables, making them inedible. Populations tend to increase with warmer temperatures in spring and summer, but can survive cold winters in the soil.

Through trial and error Miss Porter has been able to protect some of her fruit from the infestation this year.

She has netted any fruit she wants to keep, and stripped the rest of the tree to stop the fruit fly spreading.

Read more: Fruit fly found in Harcourt peaches

But it still means she cannot share any fruit outside of Bendigo.

"It’ll be management from now, I don’t think once an area has fruit fly fly it can be eradicated," Miss Porter said.

Miss Porter was frustrated by the lack of available information when she first discovered fruit fly in her garden.

It led her to develop Bendigo region fruit fly, a Facebook group to support those battling the bug.

She will also be running a community project to teach people to prune fruit trees, as a way of managing the fly.

Miss Porter hopes to teach in the gardens of those who need a bit of help pruning.

After two seasons battling the fruit fly Mrs Grist is tempted to get rid of her trees.

"It’s really disappointing. You put all that effort in of preparing the ground, and then what’s the point," she said.

"You get to the stage where you think it’s no use with all this fruit fly. You might as well chop the whole lot of them down and be done with it."

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