Nature and Gardening

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All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.

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Would a venus fly trap help deal with house gnats? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by kbyanyname@beehaw.org to c/greenspace@beehaw.org

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I've got several small houseplants in my home office, and I really like having them around. I'm still pretty new to taking care of them altogether, though, and we've gotten dozens of tiny house gnats now. I've put up sticky traps and tried to use some pest control in the potted soil. But would a small venus fly trap be able to help here?

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[–] Zoop@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know that they'd be able to keep up with them, like the other commenter said.

Something that's always worked a treat for me is to mix up some apple cider vinegar, some dish soap (I think they call it fairy liquid or washing up liquid in the UK?), and a little bit of sugar. I usually use a mason jar and put a little over an inch of apple cider vinegar in, then add the rest and stir it up. The vinegar and sugar attracts the gnats and the dish soap helps keep them from being able to escape once they touch the mixture. It works really well and I always find way more gnats in there than I even realized I had, lol. If it's a big space, I'd put a few scattered around.

It does smell like vinegar, though... but I've found it's worth it. It completely took care of the issue a few different times (until they're introduced again, but there's a lot of gnat-free time in between for me.)

[–] kbyanyname@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

I'll definitely give this a try, thank you! It's incredible how many there are