Repel brand, made with lemon eucalyptus essential oil. If you search for tests for how long different things keep mosquitoes off, this does quite well--for 2 to 4 hours. I haven't tried it for gnats, though, since they're not a problem here. I've never seen it in a normal store, but you can call around. REI carries it. So does Ludens in Charleston SC (that's where I found it)

Linda, dropping dirt is exactly what I do ha. I work for a propogating nursery and we have huge compost piles outside which we are generously allowed to use. I take two big plastic boxes left over from when we moved here and fill them every day with the compost (mostly dirt but lots of interesting stuff comes up in it). I take it home and drop it on the sand until I have the size or shape garden I want. I plant it and eventually I border it with dropped cement. I've made about seven gardens of different sizes doing this. Seriously I could drop the dirt and water it and all kinds of goodies would pop up (along with weeds). I've had datura, viola, spiderwort, hyssop and of course petunias come up in it. Adele

yes the soil is sandy , however it looked nothing like the pic's of nematodes , these were completly round an just sorta mixed in with the roots , the roots looked fine , no twisting or narled,,, I wonder if prehaps they were grub worm eggs, an really had nothing to due with the death of the plants at that time ,,,Well just start some more end of the month ,,, Thanks .

yikes, i soooo hate these things. they do jump AT you too, really daunting if you are like me and don't like spiders, as they do look like them. Our house sat empty for two years before we bought it, and these things had moved in...almost moved when i saw the first one...LOL. they got ran out of the house, but still like the detached garage. after almost nine years here, I've finally gotten to where I can go out there and not jump when I see them. My neighbors however were not happy that we ran them out of the house...LOL, they started heading back to their homes, they thought they had gotten rid of them. yes, ugly little critters aren't they? It is however, funny to watch when the cats spy one that sneaks in. they do make short work of them, however, they don't clean up after they get done playing. yuck. mine don't look quite like that picture, much more hairy. more spider than cricket looking. sally