Flies/gnats in potting soil--help!

[Anonymous]

How do I get rid of them? They hatch and flies are swarming my house from the potting soil. The potting soil is store bought and I swear every time I use I have used the soil to repot my house plants I find these gnats/flies growing in them.

I have tried various insecticides including mosquito pellets but they don't seem to work well.

Any ideas or suggestions??

[Anonymous]

High horticulture class-shake the soil into a big pan, not too thick and bake it in oven in a flat pan to sterilize the soil Don’t recall the temperature or how long, but would guess 350 degrees for 10 min would work.

[Anonymous]

High school not high

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:High horticulture class-shake the soil into a big pan, not too thick and bake it in oven in a flat pan to sterilize the soil Don’t recall the temperature or how long, but would guess 350 degrees for 10 min would work.

That means I have to take out all the plants from the pots? Is there another way without having to do that?

[Anonymous]

My understanding is fungus gnats have a quick life cycle, so ideally you treat the gnats as well as the larvae. Use the sticky traps to catch the gnats. For the larvae, I use mosquito bits. Let the product soak in the water for approx 30 minutes and then use that water for watering your plants. My recollection is that it took a couple of weeks, with once per week watering, before they were gone.

[Anonymous]

Did you get a plant as a gift from one of those flower delivery services? I did and it had those tiny bugs. I had them for years.

[Anonymous]

Spray some alcohol on the soil.

[Anonymous]

Sprinkle diatomaceous earth on the soil and then Cover with half an inch of pebbles:

[Anonymous]

Sounds like fungus gnats. Get something called Mosquito Bits and mix it in when you’re watering

[Anonymous]

If you have a bunch you probably want to get some sticky traps in your soil to catch the ones walking on the surface. Let your soil dry a few days in between waterings to help kill the larvae population

[Anonymous]

Multi-pronged approach
Spray Rubbing Alcohol mixed with water onto the soils
Dust Diamataceous Earth into the top 1/2 inch of the soil
A soil drench with a bacteria that paralyzes their larva (buy on etsy - https://www.etsy.com/listing/1029347390/8-oz-organic-bti-fungus-gnat-control)
Let the plants thoroughly dry out before watering
Sticky Traps to kill the adults

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Multi-pronged approach
Spray Rubbing Alcohol mixed with water onto the soils
Dust Diamataceous Earth into the top 1/2 inch of the soil
A soil drench with a bacteria that paralyzes their larva (buy on etsy - https://www.etsy.com/listing/1029347390/8-oz-organic-bti-fungus-gnat-control)
Let the plants thoroughly dry out before watering
Sticky Traps to kill the adults

and one other thing - you can buy some house plant decorative sand to put on top as well, but not recommended for plant that root/grow with nodes

[Anonymous]

Hmm now i wonder if thrips could come in potting soil. I had no pests for 9 months (I monitor with a microscope) then boom, thrips like crazy.

[Anonymous]

Is this miracle gro organic? Had the same issue with it.