Nasty little black flying things.

[tortzblue]

My greenhouse seedlings are doing very poorly. There are tiny weeny black hovering flies all over the soil and around the plants. They aren't black fly, like on bean plants. They are really small and hard to catch. I tried a bug spray but it made no difference. I read about a bowl of vinegar but that hasn't worked either. Any ideas please before everything dies? Oh - and the leaves are going patchy and spotty - a beige colour even though I give them a good watering.

[lancashire lass]

are they possibly thrips? Otherwise, the only other small black flies tend to be fruit flies which don't feed on the plants but prefer fruit or compost.

Not sure where the bowl of vinegar idea came from, but you could try hanging up some sticky fly catchers cards like THESE from ebay I found both the blue and yellow cards very effective for lots of flying insects in the polytunnel