My soil is good - gnat!!

[Gardening - Giggity!]

Firstly, sorry for the lame pun in the title, but hopefully I got the attention of the most bodacious lads n ladies with green thumbs.

I have several indoor plants, all in those handy pots that you can fill up and it waters from the bottom. I recently repotted a fig tree into a larger pot and planted chilli seeds into the older, smaller pot. Soon after planting my better half and I noticed mould on the soil surface, which we tried to remove, but it seems we were too late...

... because now we appear to have a fungus gnat infestation. I've read a lot of posts and am hoping for some help with two questions:
1. Is it possible the soil I last bought was infested with gnats, or was already mouldy and therefore encouraged gnats to come and hang out? I've read some angry Amazon reviews about this, but can't imagine gnats could survive in a bag in a warehouse...
2. More importantly, best cure? I've seen a multitude of suggestions (surprisingly wikipedia has the most), and so far we've tried yellow fly paper and Provanto bug spray, with no success. I've ordered Nilnat (or actually Tanlin, which they seem to have rebranded to). While we wait for it to arrive, we're planning on drying out the soil and maybe sprinkling cinnamon on the soil surface.

Is this the best approach? If it doesn't work, what else should we try? We want to avoid toxic chemicals as we're looking forward to eating the chillies.

 

[Chuck]

Firstly, sorry for the lame pun in the title, but hopefully I got the attention of the most bodacious lads n ladies with green thumbs.

I have several indoor plants, all in those handy pots that you can fill up and it waters from the bottom. I recently repotted a fig tree into a larger pot and planted chilli seeds into the older, smaller pot. Soon after planting my better half and I noticed mould on the soil surface, which we tried to remove, but it seems we were too late...

... because now we appear to have a fungus gnat infestation. I've read a lot of posts and am hoping for some help with two questions:
1. Is it possible the soil I last bought was infested with gnats, or was already mouldy and therefore encouraged gnats to come and hang out? I've read some angry Amazon reviews about this, but can't imagine gnats could survive in a bag in a warehouse...
2. More importantly, best cure? I've seen a multitude of suggestions (surprisingly wikipedia has the most), and so far we've tried yellow fly paper and Provanto bug spray, with no success. I've ordered Nilnat (or actually Tanlin, which they seem to have rebranded to). While we wait for it to arrive, we're planning on drying out the soil and maybe sprinkling cinnamon on the soil surface.

Is this the best approach? If it doesn't work, what else should we try? We want to avoid toxic chemicals as we're looking forward to eating the chillies.

What you have are probably fungus gnats. They mostly eat on fungus and organic matter in the soil but once in awhile they will feed on feeder roots. They lay their eggs in the first couple of inches of soil. The best way to get rid of them is to drench the soil with Neem Oil, a safe and organic product. What color is the "mold" on the soils surface?

 

[oneeye]

Keep the air moving with oscillating fans, and allow the soil to dry a little more than you have up to this point.. Gnats hate wind and dry soil. Keep as many as the yellow stickies close to the plants as you can 10 or 20. Some People put one yellow stickies per container. If you change the environment they will go away.

 

[Sheal]

Welcome Gardening-Giggity.

The fungus gnats have come from the soil, or is it compost? Would you have bought it from B&Q by any chance? The gnats do survive in an unopened bag in a warehouse, or outside. Unfortunately those bags tend to have some vent holes too and the gnats will migrate infesting the rest of the stock. As the stock is sold and added too the same happens. Screening and cleaning of compost isn't undertaken by some producers so being careful what you buy and where you buy it is a must.

I had problems with fungal gnats for years and did manage to get rid of them, but when the soil is changed again the problem is back. I eventually gave up and got rid of my house plants. Chuck's idea is Neem oil which wasn't available to us years ago, so I can't say whether it works or whether it's actually available now.

Gnats hate wind and dry soil.

Unfortunately that doesn't make any difference, I tried almost everything. I found only one way and it was such a long process I gave up.