I had them myself for a while - this was when I was starting my leaves - so once I noticed that I had them - I took all my leaves and repotted them in NEWLY purchased soil. (sometimes I think you get them from the actual soil you buy from the store) Anyways then I put them all in individual plastic lunch bags and watched them very closely - squishing the bugs in the bags as I saw them. I weeded out the plants that still had the knats and I did not take them out of their bags until I was SURE I was rid of them. I have been free of them now for at least 5 months. They are hard to get rid of and they can multiply fairly fast - so you should start something soon. You can also buy sticky traps at the nursery which I used also. Good luck. Golden

I'm on my third year of a variation of Gatormom's method and I get great results and save my back all that digging. I actually trim everything in the yard in the last few weeks of August and throw all the trimmings in the area where the veggie garden will be, even big limbs. At that point in the season, it's already got really great grass - better than anywhere else in my yard I'm afraid. I also cycle my composters, spreading the summer's compost all over the bed. I don't even bother to mow down the grass, because I'm about to kill it anyway and I'm going to use the bags of mulch to squish it down. When I buy mulch, I leave the bags on top of all the trimmings and compost for a week. I do this in one-week cycles, buying seven bags of mulch, leaving them there for a week, buying seven more, then using the first seven to prep a portion of the bed. I do this to squish down stuff that otherwise would stick up and let in enough space to let in weeds and such. I spread newspapers under the mulch each time I spread it. I've used cardboard too, but found it actually broke down too quickly compared to newspapers. I know others here have had really different experiences with cardboard versus newspapers, but for me newspapers work best. I lay them pretty thick. (And if you're at all worried, six months after I've put down newspapers, I can't find them anymore. They decompose completely. Same is true for cardboard, but I find they get weedy faster than newspaper does.) In a few weeks with this system, I've got a giant prepared bed for veggies, full of organic stuff, nicely mulched, ready for the baby plants to go in the ground. And that bed is getting better and better each year. As the winter goes on, I also add more compost, so that keeps improving it. This is just about the least work I can think of for my yard - I don't haul the clippings out to the street, just over to the veggie bed and I don't dig up everything. Laying the newspaper under the mulch isn't as easy as just spreading mulch, but it works so much better it's worth the work. And using the bags of mulch to squish down the organic stuff so it doesn't poke through the paper and mulch saves having to cut it up into smaller pieces, plus, being stuck under plastic bags for a week starts the decomposition process nicely. Susannah

Fire ants make mounds and not holes. The mounds start out small and become larger as the colony population increases. These mounds look rather innocent until you disturb them, and ALL of the ants boil out of the mound all at once. Again, there is never a discernible hole. I never worry about ants in my yard and garden, other than fire ants. Fire ants can be a problem for humans, pets, bird nests, beneficial insect eggs and larvae, and such.

I can't identify specifics but it's a bunch grass type of plant growing in a sod forming type of turf. Since they are small the best approach is to dig them out before they get bigger. For the larger area you might want to spray a grass killer like Grass B Gone. That will kill the surrounding grass, too, so digging might be a better alternative. If the surrounding grass is something like Kentucky bluegrass or bermuda, it will fill in by itself over time. If the surrounding grass is a more well-behaved fescue, then you will need to overseed in the fall to repair the bare spots. Fescue does not spread to fill in like KBG or bermuda.