CHICAGO — Welcome to another edition of Weekend Gardening with Tim Joyce! This weekend, Tim took a look at how to deal with soil gnats if they pop up in your potting soil, delivered tips and tricks on how to address lavender plants that won’t bloom, and gave Chicagoland residents a few ideas for colorful outdoor decor in their backyard as we get into the stretch run of Summertime Chi.
Dealing with soil gnats in places you might not expect them to be
Viewer Karen recently sent an email where she said that she recently purchased a bag of a name brand indoor potting soil from a local nursery.
“When I opened it, I find many flying gnats (or something tiny like that.). What should I do with this? I don’t want to replant and then bring this soil into my house. What can I use to get rid of this little buggers? I have Home Defense or Neem oil but I’d have to flood the bag to get rid of them all,” Karen said.
Finding soil gnats in bagged potting soil is a tad bit weird, but it’s not completely out of the ordinary.
I can understand your desire to not have these creatures in your home.
There’s a couple of options for you — The first is to close up that bag up and put it in the hot sun for a couple of days on your porch. Even better if you put in a black plastic trash bag. The heat would likely kill any soil gnats.
The next option would be a bit more labor intensive, but one can sterilize soil by putting it in an oven safe container, covering it with aluminum foil, and baking it at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes.
Another option, which would work if you already have soil gnats, is you can mix one part hydrogen peroxide — The 3% kind — with four parts water. Then water your plants and the hydrogen peroxide mix will kill soil gnat larva on contact.
How to deal with a lavender plant that won’t bloom
Pat from Orland Park sent in the picture above of his lavender plant on his front porch wondering why the flowers on it aren’t blooming.
A great question because lavender is such a wonderful scent that maintains its aroma even when the flowers are cut and dried.
Judging by the picture, it could be one of two things.
Lavender loves to get a lot of sunshine — Full sun for six hours a day, ideally — So that spot on the porch could be keeping it in a lot of shade.
Also, and probably more likely, is that the lavender plant has outgrown it’s home.
I’m willing to bet if you took it out of that plastic pot, you’d find that its likely root bound, which means the roots are wrapping around themselves.
So, my guess is there’s two options here — You can give the whole plant a new bigger home for the same spot on the porch.
Colorful outdoor décor
Last but not least, a viewer recently sent me this cute TikTok from content creator Kate Harnett, who revisited some outdoor décor she’s made this summer.
In the video, Harnett creates some vibrantly-colored stepping stones, garden bricks and other outdoorsy decorations based on fruits, vegetables, snacks and other food-related items to brighten up the scenes in her backyard.