Note: This post is actually about how to kill fungus gnats, not fruit flies, but so many people confuse them that I included fruit flies in the title just in case.
If you have house plants, office plants, or a problem throwing out old bananas, this post is for you.
What is a fungus gnat?
A fungus gnat is a small bug that lives in your plants, feasts on your plant decay, and lays billions of eggs in your plant soil. It likes to fly around your face at inconvenient times, it does not bite you, and it spreads rapidly, infesting all your greenery.
Good things to try (That will not work)
- Replacing the top 2″ of soil in each of your pots.
- Organic commercial bug sprays.
- Any bug spray you can buy at a garden center, even the ones with malathion.
- Prayer.
- Soap.
- Rinsing and spraying your plants with water.
What does work?
Fill a 2 oz spray bottle with very hot water. I use water straight out of my Keurig coffee machine, so it’s the temperature meant for teabags and dissolving sugar.
Important note: Do not immediately pick up the container with your bare hands. Use a cloth or you will be very uncomfortable.
Also: If you use a plastic sprayer, you may want to wait a bit to pour the water in – if it’s hot enough, it will warp a plastic container.
Add 10-12 drops of lemon oil. You can buy this online or in some herbal or New Age shops.
Spray your plants liberally with the lemon-water.
Fungus gnats have a devious life cycle. After one spray application, you should notice a decrease of flying bugs around your plants.
Unfortunately, their eggs are still in your plant soil, and will hatch in a week or so, depending on when they were laid. I recommend spraying every week for the next couple of weeks, until the gnats are completely gone.
This method was given to me by a coworker named Mel. If this works for you and you are grateful, feel free to send her a bag of Funions. Or, just for fun, you can send my buddy Donn a bag of Sour Patch Kids. Donn had nothing to do with this, but does enjoy them, so I figured it was worth a shot.
- Go to a personal or professional event.
- Start a conversation with someone you don’t know very well.
- Have a chat.
- Think, this is a nice person, perhaps we will chat again sometime.
- Fail utterly at saying goodbye and stand there awkwardly for 4 minutes past the time where you should both have moved on to the dessert table with the chocolate cake.
- Seriously consider moving to France.
I have this problem at every event I go to. I have no difficulty walking up to strangers and shooting the breeze. There’s always something interesting to talk about, especially if 1) they are passionate about a topic or hobby or 2) they have a good sense of humor. (By good, I mean meshing well with mine.)
You can say, “Well, nice meeting you,” or “Gosh, look at the time,” or “I won’t keep you,” but all those things come out blatantly false when I say them. Then, I feel transparently insincere and fear that the person that I’m talking to feels like I’m using any excuse to flee.
It’s not true – when I WANT to flee from a conversation, I just mickey finn their drink and sneak out with their wallet. But you can’t do that to everyone – chloral hydrate is cheap, but people get suspicious if they are always losing their wallet and repeatedly don’t remember the end of their conversations with you.
The most graceful networking goodbye that I’ve ever witnessed was actually by David Cutler and I hope that he doesn’t mind my mentioning it.
We were at a North Shore Web Geeks meet up, and had reached the end of our chat when he goes, “Hey, there’s someone you should meet,” or some such polite thing, and brings me over to another acquaintance, introduces us in such a way as to start off a new conversation, and unobtrusively wanders away.
The trouble with this approach is that you have to know enough people in the room to introduce them. And everyone I meet gives me the cold shoulder because either I don’t know them, have left them awkwardly in past conversations, or have their wallets.
So, help me out here. What do you do when the conversation is over, but you don’t have a David Cutler around and nobody’s quite smooth enough to pull off closure without that weird awkwardness? Should I just worry less and drink more at all social occasions?
I’d really appreciate feedback on this one – and the fun part is, whatever you suggest, I’ll try it in some forum, and post about how it goes.
Just to stave off the inevitable (I know you guys) growling and scratching inappropriately doesn’t go over that well, and biting creates more awkwardness than it alleviates. (Weird, I know.)
Breaking into song, dance, or rapid Italian curses also is out. But suggest something else, I’ll give it a whirl. And, (Narrows eyes and glowers over glasses frames) be helpful if you can, okay?
