Curious what you are looking at? Not that many soils that compare to FF sorry to say..I am in N. Nevada and it reaches low 100's..In my Garage where the FF bag is, maybe 130 F..Gonna cook the crap out of that bag and hope nothing survives but the microcrobes..
I want Bush Doctor Coco Loco or Roots Organic but I'm too lazy to drive 30 minutes, plus the place is way over priced. Getting one of those shipped to me from Amazon ( I have prime) is expensive. I even looked at ebay and same shipping costs. I decided to get Black Gold . Mostly because I can get from Home Depot online with free shipping (orders over $45). I haven't seen super great reviews for it but I haven't seen that many bad reviews. I might cook my remaining FFOF and see how it goes. I can get FFOF pretty easily as there is a nursery 5 minutes away from my house. If cooking it helps, I might stay with it.
Lol I got some off Amazon. Think the brand is called Trapco. It has non sticky parts on the edges so you can handle it easily. It comes with stuff to hang it. I placed mine on the floor by the plant. Caught 5 gnats the first 24 hours . Edit- wrong on the brand name. It's Trapro. Here's a link trapro - Google Search
FFOF is easy for me too..Locally $13 per bag (yeah cheap I know)..Black Gold is also easy ($9 per bag) Will have to see after I open that bag in the garage next month!
Lol I only mentioned him because it's the only source I can remember hearing that from. I seen another one say a study found bugs in every ffof in every state they bought it in. I dont how official it was and I don't recall where I seen it. And seen many more but don't recall where. Didn't exactly try to store the info to my long term memory. And in Phil Kind's defense, if his product contained bugs . I'm sure he would say more than FFOF contains bugs Anybody can read his opinion on different soil brands on his website kindsoil.com. Under soil information. You use FFOF?
Just out of curiosity, have you ever smelled soil cooking in your home; and especially in your oven that you cook food in? Just wondering. J
No - I make my own soil from scratch. I know from experience that any soil made from organic ingredients will attract insects - most of which are not bad for plants. Any organic matter in the process of decomposition will attract everything from bacteria and fungus to larger decomposers which include species of insects. Most are there to eat the decomposed organic matter and could care less if there was a plant in the soil or not. J
I didn't think you used it due to you being the most known organic grower on the forum. I have only got gnats , that I know about anyway. From what I looked up, they eat roots. They eat other stuff too that won't effect a plant but I still want them gone .
When I was in high school (30+ years ago lol) I went to an agricultural high school my Junior year. We had one specific greenhouse that we had a large "soil cooking bin" for the same reasons you described, (but which has since been discontinued) and let me tell you, when they filled this thing with dirt and brought that temperature up you would want to gag lol - it was seriously heinous and awful smelling. And this was in a greenhouse - I couldn't even imagine doing it in my home, and especially in the oven I cook my chicken and pizzas lol J
Crap, there goes my plan of cooking my FFOF. Lol Doubt my wife would be happy smelling soil being cooked. I might ask her but warn her of the smell . If she agrees, it's on her lol. Would like to use the rest of my FFOF without bugs.
In all the time I've been gardening I've never seen fungus gnats harm a plant. 99.999-% of the time they eat decomposing organic matter. I've heard larvae eat roots. I've just never seen it. Not even once. For what it's worth - anyhow. Neem cake added to soil will take care of both pests and act as an excellent fertilizer. J
I will try neem cake on my next go at it. Thanks for the tips. I asked my wife. She surprisingly wants to cook it. She likes medicine a lot lol. We are going to cook it tonight. Then get some neem cake to mix in it. Do you have a brand you recommend?
The best neem cake comes out of India and not China. I personally use Ahimsa Organics neem cake which is harvested from ancient trees grown organically in India. It can be bought from Neemresouce dot com and I think a few other places are selling it these days too. "Buildasoil dot com" comes to mind as well. Neem cake is great. It is the crushed and ground seed Hulls from which neem oil has been cold pressed but which still contains high amounts of Azadirachtin, the organic compound which gives neem its pesticide properties. It also contains elements which give it fertilizer benefits so it's win/win. It can be added directly to your soil mix at around 1/2 cup per cubic foot of soil (around 7.5 gallons) or you can sprinkle a quarter cup per pot and scratch it into the surface . GL J