An epiphany of sorts

We've been plagued with gnats lately. Okay, not plagued, at least not like a few years ago (more on that later), but there's enough of a population to be irritating. And this morning, I found out why.

I decided to poke around in the variegated ginger plant that I mentioned yesterday. What's left of it, anyway, since it's dormant and all the leaves are thus dried out. I was hoping to find that I hadn't really drowned the poor thing, after spinning in mental circles for a full day before buying it. So, upon poking in the dirt around it, I see a handful of gnats take flight, and have my "Aha!" moment. Fungus gnats. Again. Oy vey. These little buggers like to live in damp soil, and are pretty hardy. They're also attracted to light, which is why my LCD computer monitor always has at least one knocking into it.

Anyway, the ginger rhizome doesn't appear to have rotted away, I don't believe, so there's hope for it yet. I disturbed the soil in the pot, to hopefully help it dry out faster, both to save the plant and control the gnat population. I haven't been watering the houseplants as often as they'd like, so the gnats aren't too out of control yet. Thank goodness. About two years ago, they were thick in the house. Nasty little critters, with a habit of taking kamikaze dives into my water glass, as well as trying to fly up my nose as I was waking up in the morning. Fun, no? After much research, I decided that the common gnat-killing liquid (Gnatrol ®) was too expensive for my taste. After more research, I discovered that the remedy for gnats, a bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis, is also the active ingredient in the little mosquito dunks that hardware stores sell for ponds, etc. So, on to the home-grown idea - soak a mosquito dunk in water, and use the resulting brew to water the plants with.

At the same time, I also went the Darwin route and stopped watering the plants, which allowed the potting soil to dry out, and thus made a more hostile environment as far as the Stinking Gnats were concerned. I believe the plants went at least 6 weeks with little or no water, and probably longer. What water was given was the B. Thuringiensis water. Luckily, I didn't lose any plants, but then I tend to only keep the tough ones around. Like the aquarium inhabitents, anything with seriously picky constitutions doesn't last long. I gave up on poinsettias for the same reason I stopped buying neon tetras - I can't get the darn things to live. So I have my spider plants, Christmas cacti, and zebra danios, all good hardy stock.

Anyway, now that I know what's going on, I can dry out the poor ginger plant, hopefully save it, and cut down the gnat population as well. Luckily I still have some flystrips left from the last go-round.