So I'm not usually into the whole organic gardening thing. Yes, I'm generally concerned about what goes in my mouth. I like my plants to be healthy and strong, but the bugs around here are mammoth in proportion, and frankly, I need mammoth-sized products to deal with them.
Plus I think I'd have to go a long way to be as bad as what comes from the store!
All that to say: I have a new favorite product for the garden.
Cinnamon powder.
Thanks to unusually wet and cool weather, almost all of my pots are infested with fungus gnats. They're tiny black critters who can barely fly, and they're covering my soil like fleas on a dog.
They were responsible for destroying my first round of seedlings, and I'm blaming them for some of the damage to my rose cutting, too.
Well, I have found the solution. Sprinkle good ol' Cinnamon powder onto the top of your soil. It kills the fungus that gnat larva eat, thereby starving the buggers. Thusly they die too. For the adults, I've read that a bowl of soapy water (such as bath soap) will attract them. They get into the water, and drown. Excellent.
I have not attempted the soap-bowl trick, but I *have* used the Cinnamon powder. I tried it first on the rose cutting; in two days, I saw no more gnats. Now I have gone large-scale, and every pot outside has received a sprinkling of cinnamon if a gnat so much as landed on the dirt.
My garden smells delicious, the gnats are dead, and I am a happy gardener. One tip: try not to get the cinnamon powder on the leaves. I've read it will burn young leaves. Other than that... happy hunting.
No comments:
Post a Comment