I'm new to this site & basically gardening in general so please forgive me if I've posted this to the wrong forum.

In March I went out & got some vegetable & flower seeds. I started them in Miracle Gro Gardening Soil for flowers & vegetables in little shot glass sized plastic cups in my window. They all sprouted & when the seedlings were about an inch tall I transplanted them. I'm a poor college kid so at the time I could only afford a couple of decent pots. The rest went into 2 liter coke bottles that I cut the tops off, poked holes in, & filled with the same soil. I kept them inside in the window so the dog wouldn't get any ideas.

Everything was fine for a while; I watered them a little every few days & they seemed to be growing well. Then these little black bugs showed up. A few hours of googling made me pretty sure they're fungus gnats. The sticky tape controls them enough to keep them from being annoying but not enough to get rid of them. My roomie's cat decided to eat the cucumber, bell pepper, and watermelon plants, roots & all about 3 weeks ago. Since then, those containers have been sitting, not being watered, & baking in the Texas sun coming through the window; there is absolutely no moisture left in that soil at all & no other plants around. However, the fungus gnats are still buzzing around them.

That's one of the ways I've read to kill them is to let the soil go bone dry but it doesn't seem to be working. I really don't want to have to toss that soil. Is there any way to get rid of them so that it can be reused? Any help would be much appreciated :)

P.S. sorry this is so long