We’ve had tiny little things flitting around and crawling on the soil of all our plants for a while now, and today the Internet finally told me what they are: fungus gnats. Lovely name, no? Apparently once you see them flying about they’re pretty harmless, but the larvae that live in the soil can do damage to the roots. There are several ways to get rid of them, many of which are easy (dry out the soil of your plants until the bugs are all dead) and some of which involve slightly more investment but sound awesome. The remedy I most wish to try is the use of so-called “predatory nematodes” to eat the gnat larvae.

Predatory nematodes. I never thought I’d have cause to walk into a store and ask for some of those.