Yeah...I've been having the same problem with being outside in general. Gnat season is typically short, maybe it will last for half to one more month. In the mean time, just try to beat the gnats to it, either in the early morning (Before 10 a.m.) or late at night (after 8 p.m.). However the late at night solution has a couple downsides. One it will be dark, and another is, that�s the time mosquitoes come out!!! Us gardeners will never win! For now, just try to do your stuff early in the day...that's what I'm doing! =)

They are TERRIBLE this year! Much worse than the past years.... and I have no idea how to elude them. I hate the little buggers!

Alexa

I'm probably the only one bizarre enough to try this (and it helps having a secluded yard) but I get alot of satisfaction from sucking them up with my shop vac! Last year while building a deck they drove me far enough over the edge that I tried standing there with the vac on..... oh the joy of seeing their annoying little bodies suck down into the intake. It would pretty much take care of the swarm around my head..... enough so that I would call the kids over and make them stand still for a couple minutes while I sucked the gnats up around them!

my kids are too young to know I'm a little strange....

After the deck was done I left the vac outside.
Do a little gardening... attract a gnat cloud..... take a vaccuum break.... get back to work. I would have hated being outside last summer had it not been for the vac breaks.
***tip for gnat vac-ers... keep the vacuum hose intake above your head, they seem to always head to the highest point of your body.

Do you think the gnats are worse because of the decline in bat populations in PA?

Very clever, Kate. If my yard were private, I would give that a try. Maybe I'll vacuum the lawn instead of mowing next time. The gnat population seems to have died down. I wonder if it's because it has been dry lately.

Do you empty the shop vac or what? Every time I have vacuumed up a bug, I envision it living happily in the vac bag. I know that's true for fleas.

Has anyone tried the dryer sheet method for deterring bugs? One neighbor tucks one under her hat. I also have heard to just stick one in the waistband of your pants. Another neighbor wears one of those Off clip-ons. Has anyone had success with these methods, even for mosquitoes?

I leave the gnats in there. It's a shop vac and I hope the drywall dust and wood shavings make them as uncomfortable and irritated in there as they make me when I'm outside....

I do wear a hat and spray that instead of spraying myself. Keeps me from getting a sweaty backhand full of bug spray wiped into my eyes and it sems to be enough to keep them off my head and out of my hair..... sometimes....

I live in Md. and they have been terrible, you go out to water your flowerbeds or work in them, and you are swatting the gnats as well as mosquitoes. Why are they so bad this year? They get in your eyes, ears and nose and in your hair. I was down at the Community Gardens about a month ago and I see this person with a straw hat on, with net tied around that hat and her face. It wasn't until I got up close that I saw it was an Asian lady. Everytime I come back in after fighting the gnats and mosquitoes, I keep thinking how smart that Chinese lady was!

a dab of permethrin on the collar works. Permethrin is a flower extract.