It’s funny that you posted your question when you did, @anon81143130 - I’ve been wanting to create a thread with my feedback on Mosquito Bits…
After battling gnats for the better part of the past year or so, including during the cold winter months, I finally decided to give the Bits a try.
During my battle, I tried Dr. Earth, Sevin concentrate, neem oil, several pyrethrin based products & a couple others that I can’t recall. I have a 4000 gallon pond in my yard, and with ponds come mosquitoes, so I’ve had Mosquito Dunks sitting around since I built the pond in 2010. It took a year, but it finally hit me - can these things (the dunks) control gnats? I hopped online and did my research, and obviously learned that, in fact, they CAN control gnats. In fact, they make the Mosquito Bits to be a more convenient form for using with plants.
So here’s where my Mosquito Bits program likely differs from most of what I’ve read from other growers. I wouldn’t post it if it didn’t work well AND was an improvement over what most people might otherwise do.
Here are the tools I use:
One gallon pitcher, small strainer and a 1/2 PVC pipe for crushing and stirring.
I place about 2 or 3 tablespoons of the Bits into the pitcher and add a gallon of water and mix it up. Most of the Bits will float when you first put them into the water, so come back to the pitcher and stir them in throughout the day until they all fall to the bottom. Like this…
With the Bits sitting on the bottom, use that PVC pipe to mix AND crush down on the bits. You want to break off tiny pieces of the bits because this is what the gnat larvae will feed on - and it will kill them. The pieces can be so small, you can hardly see them, or not see them at all!
In this pic,
you might be able to see that I’ve poured about 2/3 of the pitcher into the bucket. Since most of the Bits were waterlogged and sitting on the bottom, I could swirl the water around in the pitcher and pour the water into the bucket without using the strainer. This ensures that I didn’t prevent any of the gnat larvae killing Bits from going into the water that I’ll be using to feed the plants.
In this pic, you can see that I caught all the Bits in the strainer when I poured the rest of the water into the bucket. For efficiency, I really get the water swirling around in the pitcher before I pour it through the strainer.
Now that I have a gallon of treated water, I just add that to the larger volume of water that I’ll be using to add my nutrients to for feeding my plants. If I have a bunch of plants to feed (maybe 10 or more), I will likely make up 2 gallons - one at a time. I like to let the Bits sit in the water overnight, but I’ve settled for an hour or so with no issues.
In this pic, , you can see how much of the Mosquito Bits I’ve used from that container. Remember the 2 or 3 tablespoons of Bits I told you to start with? Well, I’m still using the same Bits I started with a FEW MONTHS AGO!
Yup! I’ve been doing what I described every day for the past 3 months or so and I no longer have a gnat problem and I haven’t been using new Bits for each watering! I can’t believe they still work, but they do! Obviously I’m prepared to replace the Bits, but if it ain’t broke!
For the record, it took about 10 days to 2 weeks for me to notice that the gnats were almost completely gone. So it’s not fast acting, but it’s not meant to be. It’s meant to kill the larvae as they feed. Gnats might still show up in your garden, but they won’t reproduce with success and they won’t become an infestation.
I might sound like a commercial for Summit, the makers of the Mosquito Bits (and Dunks), but if you think about it, I’m telling you how to use the product in a way that works AND use the least amount possible! Easily the best insect control decision I’ve ever made.