Ok, please do not try this without checking it out first. Here is my story. I had this problem more then once. The first time I got these crawly threadlike things in my soil (ie. Last summer), I ended up throwing out my Thanksgiving Cactus. So last November, I purchased a few more Thanksgiving Cactus from the supermarket. I noticed those pesky tiny fruit flies/knats flying around my plants. ( they usually lay their eggs in the soil ) Well that was it! I mixed a combo of rubbing alcohol and water and sprayed the surface of the dirt on my newly purchased plants really well. I have knat/fruit fly traps all over...ie.. Near each plant. For the first time since the Fall, I recently saw the first little bugger and put out my traps. I may do my alcohol/ water spray again. But this is risky. It did not kill my plants, but it can kill them if you overdo this. Proceed at your own risk. Best to try to control this problem. I do not think you can completely avoid it if you have live plants in the home. They LOVE organic soil and there may be unhatched eggs in the organic soil you buy at the garden center to transplant your thanksgiving cactus into a new pot in the Spring. So far I have NOT transplanted anything. Nor have I fertilized anything. These tiny fruit flies/knats come in through screens or with your groceries/fruit that you buy at your local supermarket. They can even come up out of the drain in your sink! I have added photos of these traps. They work well so far for me. You can purchase them at Home Depot or True Value Hardware.

I love Jerry Baker and all of his crazy tips and tonics! He gets that gardening is like life you have to try this and that and see what works best for you. If you need gardening and/or life to be an exact recipe for your happiness and success you need to go back to chemicals at the gardening store. In any event I'm looking to perk up my hibiscus out on the balcony. Does anyone have Jerry's recipe for houseplant tonic? Many thanks for sharing it if you do.

thanks for the reply dan! i had read on another website that someone used a homemade insecticide soap against leaf miners which is why i was planning on trying it. i have read some of the many threads on leaf miners, but nothing too promising has been revealed. is there anything you, or anyone else here, has had success with against leaf miners? the most useful advice seems to be to pick off the infested leaves, but that's pretty much going to mean all of my tiny chard plants... any ideas if i can still pick off nearly all the leaves and the plants will still produce new leaves? this is my first year gardening, so any advice is much appreciated! i know that for harvesting the chard you can pick off some stalks and new ones grow, it's just that my largest plant is only a few inches tall at this point, so i'm worried about the resilience of such small plants. and any reason why i shouldn't use murphy's or other soaps on plants/leaves that i plan on eating? thank you!

We've had decent results painting undiluted Roundup concentrate (~18% glyphosate) directly onto the fresh cut stumps of trumpet vine, bamboo, and other declining or unwanted shrubs. For much larger sugarberry and mulberry, we painted around the outer edge and poured some into holes drilled for a later application of stump remover. "Stump Killer" is about 32% glyphosate, so essentially RU on steroids. This is basically the approach recommended by the Scotts (RU) and stump remover product folks. Concern about damage to adjacent plants via interconnecting roots is valid and mentioned by Scotts at the following link; know this could be a concern for an oak stump among other oak trees, but not sure that this sort of root involvement applies to wisteria among other shrubs/flowers. Stump removal products (Potassium Nitrate/Sodium Metabisulfite) don't claim to able to kill the stumps, but did seem to greatly reduce sprouting the few times we've used them without glyphosate. These accelerate decomp and enable the stump to absorb kerosene or other fuel oil for burning (if desired). Don't think I'd use diesel as an herbicide in the garden unless it was going to be burned away within the stump. Here is a link that might be useful: Killing stumps with RU and warning This post was edited by bostedo on Wed, Jul 24, 13 at 14:10