How can I get rid of small gnats in soil?

I just started a couple of seeds. They are about 3" tall but there are about 30 small gnats that fly around every time I water them. What is a safe way to kill them without hurting the plants? Thanks

Iron them ... LOL... Just kidding.. you cant do that to small plants just starting out... Ive heard to put a layer of sand on top of the soil so that they wont even touch it... They cant get through it to lay their eggs.. therefore no larvae to turn into gnats...

i got mites in mine and spray the soil every couple of days and that works just i need something i can set in the water to kill them in the deep roots that wont kill the plant. which is also very good for yours dude.

I use 1 tsp of neem oil with 1 tsp soap( I use Dr. Bronner's) mixed up well into 1 gallon of water. Water as usual and the neem will kill the gnats larvae in the soil. The ones flying will only live on a week or so. You can spray the plant with the neem oil mix, but it is a mess and just doing the soil will do the trick in a week or 2.

wow i thought soap would kill a plant, its more base than acid i think.

If you want to get rid of the flying gnats as much as possible , you can get sticky fly tape , pull it out about 4 to 6 inches and lay it down across your soil. do a few that way until your pot is surrounded on the inside and you will notice them getting stuck to it within just a little while...

This will kill the seedlings, but you can bake your soil on a cookie sheet at about 400 for an hour or so.

just be careful not to get the tape stuck to any of your leaves.. LOL

you can also use mesquito dunks or monterey garden insect spray (snpinosad) the spinosad is omri organic its a fermented bacteria thats found naturally in soil neither will harm your plants & will kill the larvae & adults amoungts any others kind of soft body insect.

Go gnats by hydroorganics it rocks start with 1/2 strength then move up use as soil spray then foiler feed if nessacary

hey donzy63, I usually put the rocks all purpose at the homedepot (soil section) on the pot and normal water routine...drowning flying gnat !!! death to flying gnat

I had your exact problem in a single pot out of my six. I just went a few extra days without watering the soil and they seemed to go away. Maybe I got lucky?

two words- fuck all that other shit - beneficial nematodes! you can get the ScanMask brand on ebay for like 20 bucks. one small container will make a mixture to cover like 4000 square feet of plants. I put the whole shit in my five pots, and Emeril was like Bam! and in seven days, no more fucking gnats. you can fuck with all the other snake oil shit if you want to find out the hard way.

-TomM

Thanks for all the remedy's........I like them all. I think I'll try Saint Thomas's method first! Good growing to you all......