Making sure the Houseplants stay insect free :). . . . . . Naturally!

It's been said that a good defense is a great offense, and with that in my mind,  I've taken on WAR with the fungal gnats that can live in houseplants. It doesn't matter that we don't have any fungal gnats or that I have yet to see one little flying creature in the house, it's war and it's on!!!!!

 Years ago we brought home a plant and later found out it had fungal gnats (sounds worse then it is, it's basically two or three fruit flies hanging around), they look just like fruit flies, you wouldn't know the difference if you saw one, the only reason I knew they weren't fruit flies was because we had no fruit out!

This time around I will launch the first attack, even if there is no one to fight against!

Fungal Gnats live in the moist soil of houseplants. If you have a few fungal gnats I can almost guarantee that you are over watering your plants. They need the moist soil to survive!
So If you happen to see a fruit fly and you have no expired fruit out, you might have gnats. Not to worry for two reasons:

1. They are completely harmless, they are no threat to humans or pets.
2. They are easy to get rid of, here's how:

• First, stop over watering your plants! Try this first, there's a good chance they'll go away just from this!

• If you still have a fly or two, place a potato on top of the soil, this will attract the larvae and make sure future generations of gnats aren't born! Throw out the potato slice daily.

• And last, in correlation with the potato, or by itself you can try these yellow stickers. They're called STICKY STIKS They have no insecticide on them they are basically just super sticky tape, the adult gnats are attracted to the color and will get stuck, won't be able to lay eggs therefore breaking the  cycle :)

I bought this pack for $5.99 it comes with a million little sticky "leaves" and a bunch of little "stems".

 Here's how they look when "assembled"

Here's how it looks in the plant, you can barely notice it's there!

As a precautionary measure I've placed one in each of our houseplants! and I've added a layer of sand to the tops of the plants, sand dries quickly so adults gnats will assume the soil is dry and not lay eggs!

Because every plant deserves to sing:

                             "There ain't no bugs on me, there may be bugs on some of your mugs,
                                                         but there ain't no bugs on me"