ellen 
This past week a friend of mine bought organic soil that had a gnat infestation. Not totally unheard of, but annoying none the less. Luckily, this pest does nothing to your plants, only annoys you. Not so great when you re-pot all your indoor plants and suddenly are swarmed by gnats. Gnats like these are feeding on fungus growing on moist soil. Two things to help:
- let the soil dry out between watering.
- punch holes in a small jar and put vinegar in it. the gnats are attacked to the vinegar, will fly in, but won’t be able to get out.
Composted manure concern. Also this past week, I read about someone who bought composted cow/horse manure that had been tainted by herbicide. Very unfortunate. It’s always important to know where your new compost is coming from. Composted manure tends to have a lot of weed seeds, and weed seeds are tough enough to try to out live you. I’ve had a few nice surprises of butterfly and milkweed, but there has been a few stinging nettle too. Now that I’ve got my garden started and a compost brewing for this past two growing seasons, I’ll stick to that rather than the manure again to be on the safe side.
Let us all know if you’ve had any soil issues or breakthroughs. It’s the most important part of your garden, so share your secrets!
I took your advice and cut back on watering of all my house plants and let the soil dry out completely. The gnats have disappeared so much so that I only found a couple floating in my vinegar jars! Thanks for your help 🙂
Glad to hear it!