Hello everyone, been here a while but do more reading and searching than asking. I am new but fast learning this amazing art. I guess I call it that because this more than a plant.
I started making my own soil with build a soil mix. Have veterans helping me along at times. This nightmare made me feel pretty stupid. 3 weeks in and I had bugs bad. Not only gnats but mealy bugs and had to look it up to understand. I tried to save my girls but noobie I just couldn’t get ahead. So now I am nervous about new plants in my soil. I plan on using Neem oil before I transplant. I have a grow room but this was a hard hit for me. Is there anything else I should be worried about before I try again? Soil is peat moss, manure, lava rocks, rice husks, klacamas coot’s soil amendments and mycorrhizal fungi. Let it heat for 2 weeks and ph was good at 6-7 .
Thanks for all of your support here it’s taught me a lot about how unique and fun this can be. I never knew I could get attached to a plant wow
If you mix in some mosquito bits into your soil it will kill the fungus gnat larvae, its just a bacteria that attacks the larvae so it wont hurt your plant. You can also use diatomaceous earth sprinkled on the top to kill most bugs that will harm your plants. It serves as a silica for the plant and bug killer/deterrent. Just make sure to leave the DE dry because its not a chemical and works by means of penetrating the exoskeleton and wont do so if wet. The last thing you can do for gnats is put some yellow sticky traps around your plants.
for the mealy bugs you can buy a spinosad soap, a lot of people recommend captain jacks dead bugs but i have “Fertilome” and its the same thing already ready to spray as opposed to mixing and diluting.
Composting your soil covered so that it can heat up will kill unwanted pests.
Your soil build is going to need a lot of additional ingredients fyi. There are some recipes on the forum you can search for, especially under “Garrigan”. Things like fruit-bat guano, oyster flour, kelp etc.
I used DE for some soil bugs and they were gone within two days, very effective and safe.
Thanks I am learning the basic recipe and then researching some of the ingredients I need to create a super soil. Just a lot to learn I sometimes trip. Appreciate the direction
Awesome thank you this gives me something better I am sure than what I was stressing my girls out with.
Great help was little confused about what you mean with mosquito bits? Like straight up mosquitos grinding up for soil?
Exactly what ChittyChittyBangin posted, my Walmart only had the dunks so I crushed them with a hammer to make it mix into soil.
Oh man I feel silly but I am learning so much it’s hard to get it all together at times . I will be buying some of these for sure . I was wondering do you need to do a flush when using Neem oil? Before planting or is it not toxic enough to harm plants
Which is better for gnats? The mosquito bits or DE?
If you don’t have any at the moment you should use the mosquito bits. It has a bacteria “Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis“ that targets the larvae and kills them. This doesn’t do anything to the adults but diatomaceous earth will. It’s almost best to use both once you see them flying to kill their life cycle
Thank you. Have them being delivered overnight!
Thanks again everyone it’s got my world back on path to growing again.