suction

I have taken drastic measures against the fungus gnats. They are driving me nuts. For some reason they've decided to make my Pothos plant a breeding ground- and I hardly ever find one on the Arrowhead that sits next to it. I've tried letting the soil dry out, and setting out dishes of apple cider vinegar, to no avail. Most recently I put some cider vinegar and sugar in these two narrow-necked bottles, but only a few crawled in. Not enough to dent the population.

The gnats have been resting on the underside of the Pothos leaves in dozens, crawling around inside the reservoir (which I emptied of water), swarming over the soil surface. So today I attacked them with a vacuum attachment. Yeah. Vacuum. It was surprisingly effective. Although I should have been more careful- I accidentally sucked up a few leaf tips.

It was better to put the vacuum nozzle close to the stems, and run it over the soil surface until I saw no more crawling bugs. I only lost a little bit of soil.

When I saw no more gnats on the plant itself I moved it aside and sucked up all those crawling on the lamp stand surface, the lamp, and hovering around- I actually sucked some out of the air. Well, now there's only a handful instead of swarms, and they're not annoying me anymore. I just wish I hadn't damaged the poor plant. I don't really recommend this measure, ha ha.