If you are like me, you love having indoor plants. They give colour, life and a bit of greenery inside. During the Coronavirus pandemic, so many people went out and got indoor plants due to being stuck inside for a lot of the day. As a result, garden supplies and hardware stores could keep up with the demand for plants and potting mix.
Sadly, it seems potting mix makers seemed to have rushed their production and no matter what brand you buy, they appear to bring with them the uninvited guests of these very small and very annoying fugus gnats!
They hover around plants and my sink. My infestation of fungus gnats was so bad, my partner wanted me to rid the house of all indoor plants. So I set about on a mission to find out how to rid us of these unwanted guests.
I tried a number of different things recommend online below.
drying out the soil - I tried not watering the plants at all until almost entirely dried out without killing the plant; this didn't work.
Nematodes - nematodes eat the larvae of fungus gnats and apparently comes in a powder and you water into the soil. Sadly, I couldn't source Nematodes in Australia.
Neem oil drench - I tried neem oil drench (neem oil mixed with water and a tiny bit of dish washing liquid) every few days into the soil for three weeks without success.
Sticky traps - I had some success with these and caught a few gnats but it wasn't entirely successful as not all the gnats went for the traps.
Apple cider trap - I tired a homemade apple cider vinegar trap with sugar and a 2 drops of dish washing liquid. This did wonders at attracting the gnats to the trap, it it was pretty successful in getting the gnats to go into the trap. You have to shake the trap to keep the bubbles up from the dish washing liquid. sometimes a bit of the attractant would go onto the sides of spill out in the process an the gnats would eat this so after each shade, you have to clean it to make sure there is no residue on the outside they can get to. It did capture about 15 gnats.
What did work
What worked for me was a mixture of the last two failed solutions above; sticky traps with apple cider trap and a thick layer of gnat barrier rocks made by Yates which I got from Bunnings (large home improvement/hardware store here in Australia). You can use course sand if you like as the gnat barrier rocks are a bit expensive, but be sure to sanitise the sand first in order to reduce the risk of introducing something else to your indoor plants.
How to make the trap.
I used a 1.25 litre soda drink bottle which I cut with a Stanley Knife. Cut off the upper part of
the soda drink bottle, cut out some of the middle section so it is so tall and invert the lid section into the bottle as in the picture.
I then filled it with apple cider vinegar attractant made from
1 teaspoon of sugar dissolved in warm water from kitchen tap
200 mil organic apple cider vinegar and;
a splash of red wine.
I added red wine as I noticed they were attracted to my wine rack and to my wine glasses when I drank a nice red!
I then struck yellow sticky traps to the side of the trap with sticky tape. I got these indoor plant sticky traps I got from Bunnings but any yellow sticky trap will work. They are attracted to the colour yellow so ensure you get yellow ones.
This trap has been so successful. As you can see in the picture, they all were attracted to the apple cider vinegar along with the yellow stick trap and there are heaps! This along with the gnat barrier rocks did the trick.
There are no more fungus gnats in our apartment!
Shout me a packet of seeds
If you liked this blog article and have some spare coins to share in line with the permaculture principles of Fair Share/Redistribute Surplus, please shout me a packet of seeds or some garden supplies.
This will also help me to buy garden supplies and cover the costs to host the site, currently costing me hundreds of dollars per year form my own pocket.
With much gratitude.
Thank you David for sharing your knowledge! Tried this with great succes.