bug battle

My houseplants have gnats. I think they're fungus gnats. They're very annoying - they try and fly into your nose and mouth, and generally circle around your face in an irritating way. I really don't want to repot all my plants, so I've tried some other strategies to get rid of them.

The first level of attack is to smack between your palms every gnat you can. This doesn't make much of a dent in the population, but can be satisfying to get rid of one that's bothering you at the moment.

Second thing I did was to let my plants dry out, as the gnat larvae need moist soil to live in. All my large houseplants I'd been watering once a week; they seem to be doing just fine now on their second week staying dry. Always were a little moist before, that was probably my error.

Some of my plants didn't survive this treatment. The "charlie plants" dried up and died.

My "kiwi" plants had some leaves shrivel up. The rest of the plants seem to be doing okay.

Third strategy was to put out shallow dishes of a liquid that attracts the gnats. First I tried rice vinegar, then white wine, only got a few or none at all. Then I tried apple cider vinegar, and I get a lot of drowned gnats in it. Every few days tip out the dishes and refill. Glad to use it, too, as the cider vinegar has been just sitting in my cupboard- I don't cook with it much. The source I read that gave me this trick said to cover the dish with plastic wrap and poke a few holes in it; the bugs would crawl in but not find their way out. This didn't work for me. None went in. After I peeled off half the plastic

it got much more effective.

 I've also done this thing of putting slices of raw potato all covering the soil around the plants. Apparently the gnats will lay their eggs on the potato instead of dirt, and then you throw it away. The potato slices soon had whitish patches on them, but I couldn't tell if it was gnat eggs or mold! It was so yucky looking I threw them all out today. Just as well; they'd been on there three days and gnats hatch in four or five, so if it was the eggs, I got some!

Final strategy is now that I'm starting to water again, put a little dishsoap in the water. It doesn't hurt the plants, but might hurt the bugs. Not sure if this works, but doesn't hurt to try. So far, some success, there are far less gnats flying around here now. I think the most effective thing has been: A) drying out the soil and B) apple cider vinegar. So, if you have gnats in your plants, try a few of these tricks. One of them might work before you have to go buy an insecticide spray.