Mosquitoes and Taxes

This year the first mosquito bit me on April 15th. Kind of appropriate I thought since both are vexing issues.

All the rain we've had this year has been good - it means we haven't had to water in the garden as much and all the veggies are doing exceptionally well.

But all this rain is also bad because it is really hard to keep up with dumping out all the rain water that accumulates in anything that will hold water. We don't have too many places in the garden that collects water but there are a few so we still have to be pretty diligent about it  After all, mosquitoes only need a teaspoon of water to lay eggs, hatch and grow to maturity.

Don't forget to keep checking your slug and snail traps - if they aren't refreshed or emptied constantly they can end up raising a crop of mosquitoes instead!  (see picture to the left - oops!) Warm weather makes mosquitoes breed faster because there is nothing to slow down their life cycle.

There are two easy ways of combating mosquitoes. Do mosquito patrol after every rain and try to tip over everything that has caught rain water. (If possible, try not to have anything that does catch rain water. Or at least minimize what does catche rain water.)

Use mosquito dunks to prevent mosquitoes. These work really well to kill any larva present and prevent more larva from hatching.  The dunks are non-toxic to birds, fish, frogs, cats and dogs.  If you have spots that are hard to get to or you catch rain water to reuse when it is dry, just put some of the mosquito dunk in there and voila, your problem goes away. You just have to check every few weeks to see if you need to add more mosquito dunk pieces.

Usually you only have to add pieces every 30 days but because we have had so much rain (6.5 inches since June 1st), it is washing out my mosquito dunk crumbles that I had put in the saucers under my pots with plants.

You do NOT have to put dunks in birdbaths unless you never empty or clean them out. If you are keeping clean water in your birdbath you will never have a problem. If you don't do anything with your birdbath for a week then you will end up with mosquito larva in it.

Mosquito dunks can be found at Home Depot and Lowe's in the insecticide for homes area. At the Lowe's on Dallas Hwy it is found on the same aisle as bird feeders and birdseed.