I started seeing the fungus gnats in the house and traced it down to a plant I brought in from being outside, but now they are in a couple other plants that never have been outside. I used the mosquito dunk product and it was working but my plant I had brought in was still looking poorly so I completely removed the fig tree from the soil mixture and examined the mixture. I found centipedes, Millepedes, 4 big white grubs, earthworms, and some other things moving that I did not know what they were. I cleaned my plant stem, that now barely had any roots left, and treated it like a large cutting, and put it in sterilized sand to start rooting it. It has been just a few days and is improving well. The contaminated soil I boiled to kill everything in it, and then strained it through a colander lined with cloth.
All the other plants I buried chunks of potatoe to draw the larva out for a few days, then treated them with the mosquito dunk water and then topped all my plants in my house with 1/2" to 1" of my sterilized sand. I also used old panty hose to cover the drain holes.
So if you have pots outside you bring in, they may contain all sorts of living things, good and bad.
Just like we sterlize our cutting instruments when we cut our plants, to make the cuttings, we need to sterilize our soil mixtures for our baby plants. There are many ways to sterilize our mixtures. Simple one is put in into a black trash bag and let it sit in the sun a couple days to get the temp up. make the layer thin in the bag. Other ways is to use chemicals, microwaves, ovens, boiling it, and with steam.
here are some links
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7448.html http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74145.html http://www.goorganicgardening.com/soil/how-to-sterilize-soil http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/sterilizing-soil.htm
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