Warning! Do NOT buy miracle grow organic moisture control potting soil!!

[Smokin Okie]

So if I did not get the gnats when I potted up indoors, then they won't make it in the ground outside.

I gotta figure something else about the ones on my patio. Lived here 31 years and never had this problem before.

 

[mike243]

My wife kept a plant from her father's funeral for 7-8 years and we repotted it with fresh store bought dirt, can't remember the brand now it's been so long but it killed it dead. We had changed the soil out yearly and never any problems but kinda burnt us on using store bought.

 

[Torch&Tone]

the final straw was when after probably 15 years of growing, the squirrels decided they love tomatoes. The B@$!*&#'s dont just eat them, they wait until your best tomatoes are just blushing and you are licking your chops, then pull the tomato off, eat maybe 20% of it and leave the rest there to really irk you.

My favorite anti-squirrel measure for protecting tomatoes: long before they ripen, hang red Christmas ball ornaments all around the plants. By the time the tomatoes get some color, the varmints will have already concluded that "round red thing" is not, in fact, edible and should (hopefully) leave the tomatoes alone. Unless they have already developed a taste for them, in which case planting early-ripening (especially round-shaped) hot peppers might help.

"Squirrels are just rats with good PR."

 

[chef k-dude]

Ha, ha! Never thought of the Christmas ornament idea. These squirrels around here are pretty freaking smart and definitely had the taste for tomatoes. I would trellis cherry tomato plants to keep them vertical and weave the plants in and out of the twine...they would grow above the 6 foot height of my trellis and I would train them back down through the trellis. The squirrels would climb up in that vertical jungle and just camp and eat.

I tried brutal annihilation one year, but like rats, it doesn't seem to matter how many you exterminate, there are plenty more where they came from. I've ceded the forest back to the animals! And thats my problem. We are in the forest, not wide open flat land where the varmints have to expose themselves to the hawks to reach the gardens.

 

[crazymoon]

My favorite anti-squirrel measure for protecting tomatoes: long before they ripen- a .22 works wonders ! :)

 

[Rafter H BBQ]

So, I am late to the party here… imagine that!
Talking with my Mom last night… she said this is not anything new… been going on for years!

Her Mom, my Grandma would line a cookie sheet with plastic wrap and bake the soil at 250* for an hour… that kills off the bugs and eggs!

End result… good soil minus the bugs!

 

[Chasdev]

So, I am late to the party here… imagine that!
Talking with my Mom last night… she said this is not anything new… been going on for years!

Her Mom, my Grandma would line a cookie sheet with plastic wrap and bake the soil at 250* for an hour… that kills off the bugs and eggs!

End result… good soil minus the bugs!

Great plan, unless you have 8 of the 1sq foot bags to roast.