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Organic Mosquito Control Can Help With Spring Cleaning

February 8th, 2010 Posted in Mosquitoes & Repellent

Although it’s still early in February, it is not too early to start thinking about sprucing up your home and backyard for the spring. The first thing you can do is destroy any mosquito breeding grounds on your property.

But instead of harming the environment with chemical pesticides, there are many organic ways to control the number of mosquitoes around you home.

Keep your property mosquito free with a few simple steps:

• Clean up your property
• Grow plants mosquitoes hate
• Use organic pesticides in your yard

Clean up your property

After a cold, snowy and wet winter, your property is likely to be a mess. But if you clean it up, mosquitoes will be less likely to make it their home base.

First step: get rid of stale, standing water

Mosquitoes need still water to breed and plant their eggs. Getting rid of these breeding grounds is part of long-term and preventative control of your yard. Without water to breed, mosquitoes will fly over your yard in search of a better home.

Water can collect in a variety of places, including:

• Tin cans
• Pet dishes
• Buckets
• Holes in trees
• Gutters
• Old tires
• Bird baths
• Ponds without fish

If you wish to have an ornamental pond on your property, you can buy fish that feed on mosquitoes and their larvae. These fish are of the Gambusia genus and have upturned mouths (perfect for snatching mosquitoes off of the water’s surface).

If you don’t have a pond, you may not know where to start looking for mosquitoes. One way to determine where mosquitoes are living, is to stand in different areas around your property. The less time it takes for mosquitoes to appear, the closer you are to the source. Mosquitoes will not travel far to find food.

Here’s a checklist of other ways to organically clean and control your yard:

• Replace any porch window screens and doors with tears or holes
• Get rid of water that collects on top of pool or boat covers
• Turn canoes or small boats upside down when storing
• Fix any outdoor dripping faucets
• Regularly unclog gutters
• Keep citronella candles for your deck
• Use organic pesticides around the yard

Another way to utilize organic mosquito control? Grow mosquito-repelling plants.

Grow plants mosquitoes hate

As much as mosquitoes love still water, there are many plants they can’t stand.

Five plants mosquitoes hate are:

1. Citronella grass
2. Catnip
3. Rosemary
4. Marigolds
5. Mosquito plants

Citronella grass

This is the same grass where citronella oil comes from for candles. This tropic grass can grow up to 6 feet tall, so for a more temperate, suburban backyard, stick to the citronella candles.

Catnip

Cats may love this herb, but mosquitoes despise it. The oil from this plant is more than 10x more effective than DEET (the chemical in many pesticides).

Rosemary

Rosemary oil (which EcoSMART uses in its products) will repel mosquitoes, but will not thrive in cold climates. Grow rosemary in a pot inside during the winter before transferring it outside in the summer.

Marigolds

Marigolds have the added bonus of repelling mosquitoes and veggie-attacking bugs like aphids. They also come in beautiful colors from bright yellow to dark reds.

Mosquito Plants

There are plants simply called mosquito plants. Find these online or by mail order.

Once you have expanded your beautiful garden, keep it alive with natural products for organic mosquito control.

Use organic pesticides in your yard

Now that you have spent all this time cleaning and revamping your yard, you won’t want to poison it with chemicals.

An entomologist from Cornell University, David Pimentel, found that about 99.9 percent of sprayed chemicals end up draining into the environment and harming ecosystems.

Avoid turning your backyard into a bio hazard with all natural pest control. EcoSMART products are 100% safe to use on your plants and around your family. So start planning today how this spring, you will use organic mosquito control for your most beautiful yard yet.