My Experience With Growing an Organic Container Garden: Pesky Pests 4

 I am writing a series of blogs about my experiences in growing an organic container garden and most recently my problems with pests. You can see the most recent post here.  So I have given up bringing the plants in the house for the time being.  The gnats are just not going away.  I have moved them all outside and intend to leave them out there for now.  I got the nematodes last week and did the first treatment, The nematodes are little round worms that eat the gnat larvae. It arrived via us mail and sat in the mailbox for several hours in the heat. When I opened the box there was a warm ice pack in it, and it said to keep refrigerated, so I am not sure if they even survived, they looked really weird.

 

Unfortunately it rained the evening I did the treatment, so I don't know if they just got washed away.  I have been continuing to use the gnatrol also and making sure not to over-water.  On the bright side there are no more gnats in the house. 

 

I separated the heavily infested plants with the lightly infested and the heavily infested plants. I make up separated bottles of gnatrol one for heavily infested and for those I have been letting them get really dry and then dousing them with mixture of water and three and a half teaspoons of gnatrol per gallon. These plants have been thriving, despite the fact that they are getting a lot of shade, but still have gnats. The mixture for the lightly or not at all infested plants is two teaspoons per gallon and I use this whenever those plants need water.