Finally Get Those Pesky Fungus Gnats Off Your Plants With This Beloved Starchy Food

Gardening is a rewarding hobby that can not only brighten up the interiors of your home but also elevate its outside appearance. However, one annoying thing about having a garden (no matter how small) is the presence of pests. Unfortunately, when it comes to pests, even indoor potted plants aren't immune. One particularly destructive and difficult-to-get-rid-of pest that commonly infects indoor plants is the fungus gnat. Fungus gnats thrive in moist soil and can be easily introduced to your indoor plants when you bring outside potted plants inside for the winter or when you buy an already infected plant from the garden center. While adult fungus gnats don't harm your plants, they lay larvae that often feed on roots, weakening your plants and causing their leaves to turn yellow.

Luckily, there is one simple solution to get rid of fungus gnats and it involves a starchy vegetable that you probably already have in your pantry leftover from that perfect campfire side dish – a potato. In fact, simply putting potato slices in your potted plants can help reduce your fungus gnat problem. This works because fungus gnat larvae love potatoes and will quickly ditch the roots of your plant to infest a potato instead. This method is not only cheap and easy to do, but also helps you avoid using any chemical insecticides or ugly sticky traps around your home.

To catch fungus gnat larvae, the first step is to get a raw potato and then cut it into ¼-inch-thick slices. Then, simply take your potato slices and lay them on top of the soil of each plant that is infested with (or is believed to be infested with) fungus gnats. Make sure that the cut-side – not the skin-side – is touching the soil. Next, all you have to do is wait. Within three to four days, the gnat larvae will leave the soil of your potted plants and enter the raw potato and you can simply pick up the potato slice and throw it away, getting rid of any future fungus gnats.

To make sure this method is successful, you should repeat this process every few days until there are no more larvae present in your potato traps. Adult fungus gnats only live for about one week and you should start noticing a reduction in your infestation when the adults start to die off. Because a single adult can lay up to 200 eggs, you may need to regularly add potato slices to your potted plants to check for any gnat larvae you may have missed as a few gnats can easily restart the infestation. In the meantime, if you want to repel the adult gnats and keep them from buzzing around you and your family, you may have some luck with peppermint oil.