Foolproof Fungus Gnat Prevention and Control

You know, as an indoor and outdoor gardener, I battle my fair share of pests, both here in the backyard and the front yard and unfortunately in my houseplant jungle as well. And while there are some really annoying pests outdoors, your aphids, your hornworms, there's probably no more annoying pest than the fungus gnat. Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening where it's my goal to help you grow a greener thumb. And you know, part of that is defending against the legion of pests that can affect your garden. Fungus gnats, specifically the ones in the Sciaridae family. They're the ones that are the most destructive, especially to our indoor houseplants, are super annoying. And it seems like there's a never ending cycle of dealing with them once you get them. That's why we're going to go through at a deeper level and really understand what they are, how they live and how to prevent and control them in this video. So cultivate that Like button for fungus gnat eradication and let's get into the video. Now, when it comes to a pest, really any organism, including these plants that we're growing, it helps to understand how they live, how they reproduce, what's their life cycle. And so let's talk about their life cycle. First of all, where do they like to lay their eggs? They like to lay their eggs in moist soil near the base of plants like this little guy right here. The eggs will go for about four to six days. Then the larval stage comes out. When the larval stage comes out, it has about a two week buffet period. It's feasting on organic matter. It's feasting on dead or decaying or diseased roots. We'll get into why that's such a big deal later, but then it'll go through a pupil phase of about three to four days and then it will become an adult again. Those adults live for about a week or so, give or take. The problem is that those adults, it's a one to 300 ratio. Those adults can lay 300 eggs, which means that even if you miss one, you're never going to stop having a fungus gnat problem. So let's get into some prevention methods and then we'll go into control. I've got four prevention methods for you, all to varying degrees of effectiveness. And I would encourage you to use all of them simultaneously. Number one would be when you are watering a beautiful houseplant, try to not overwater it. I know that's kind of a very generic guide, but I do have an entire 20 minute guide on how to water container plants that I encourage you to watch if you're struggling with watering your plants. The reason why is because if you water and specifically overwater, you're going to cause root rot, fungal disease on your plant roots. And what does a fungus gnat like to eat? It likes to eat specifically that. So you're kind of growing its food for it. You don't want to do that. Another thing, very often recommended, this one in particular is from Safer Brand. It's a houseplant sticky stake. And so what you do is you would grab one of these, just one of these guys, and then you would attach it to this like that. And then you just place that in the soil. Now that's more of a detection mechanism for the flying adults. The adults will be somewhat attracted to the yellow. They will hit it, they will stick to it. And remember, every time you trap an adult, you're trapping 300 potential future eggs. So it's a very, very helpful thing to do. Another thing, let's imagine that I got this beautiful plant from a nursery and it's coming into my new houseplant jungle. It's coming into here. This is the new plant and this is the area that's my actual jungle, right? I don't want to just let it in. We have to put it in a bit of a holding zone. So leave it in its own area for a little bit. First of all, inspect it when you get it from the nursery, but leave it in its own area. And you know, kind of take a peek, see if there's any disease, any damage, any pest control problems. And if there is, don't add it to your garden. Cause then you're just going to be spreading it. This will be a vector for everything else. So once it's past its little holding period, then you can move it in. So that's just a nice little tip. And the final tip I'll say is they like to lay their eggs on moist soil. So if you prevent them from accessing that, that can be a really good idea. For example, we have a little bit of this plant fiber right here as a mulch layer on top of these plants. That's going to deter them to some degree from laying their eggs. Now you could lay a thicker barrier if you want to, and that can be a really good tip as well. Keep in mind some houseplants don't really like to have that mulch on there. So you just kind of have to modulate that. But those are four really good prevention tips. So now we're dealing with some control tips once you actually, unfortunately have the problem of fungus gnats, which I actually do right now. So these are tips also for myself. Now there's things that you can do like a hydrogen peroxide soak, 3% hydrogen peroxide, soak it. It's supposed to kill the larva. I've seen it work to varying degrees of effectiveness. Part of the problem with that is that you have to make sure that then there's no adults to start the cycle over again, right? And so you might kill it in one pot at one point in time, but then the cycle could still perpetuate itself. Now Neem oil, often recommended. This one's from Safer Brand. I really like their products. Not sponsored or anything. I just really like their products and that can work really well. Neem oil in general, the azadirachtin, which is the active compound within Neem oil is one of the most effective things for many different pests. The problem again is you still have to do a bit of a soak and you're still going to miss over time. Now the one that seems to be quite effective is this right here. Mosquito bits. Seems like it wouldn't be for fungus gnats, but in fact what's really working in here is something called Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis, specifically the subspecies Israelensis. Now what happens is you basically are just sprinkling these bits. It's like an inoculated brand type of product. There's just literally these little bits. And every time you water, you're going to be adding a little bit more Bt into your soil. And so that means that every time you water, you're turning your watering into a pest prevention and control method at the same time. So you could layer just a thin layer of mosquito bits over the top of any soil that's affected. And that can actually work really, really well because it helps with the dimension of time. Remember, just because the life cycle, we know it, you know, egg, larva, pupa, adult, and repeat, just because we know that doesn't mean that every infestation is happening on the same cycle. And so if you can water, water, water, and continually add some control, then you can start to cut down on the overall reproductive rate of the fungus gnats. It sounds very nerdy and complex, but this is just how I think about this pest control stuff. And it is kind of cool to think about it this way. So that is my absolute best prevention tip. I hope that you don't even need this video. I hope that you don't have to deal with fungus gnats because they're super, super annoying both for your plants and also for you. Like if you're reading at night and you're nightlight and they come flying around, it's so annoying. So I hope this helped. If there's something that you really found effective that I did not mention, drop it in the comments. Remember, we're trying here at The Epic Gardening Community to teach a lot of people, 10 million people how to grow their own food and, and deal with plants in a healthy, safe way. And I can't do that alone. So if there's something you see, drop it in the comments. That'd be very, very helpful. Like and subscribe if you liked the video. And guys, thank you so much for the explosive growth of The Epic Gardening Channel. I can't even begin to tell you how much it's changed my life. And so I can only hope that I can pay that forward by changing yours as well. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.