ORGANIC MOSQUITO CONTROL

[ElizabethB]

As the temperatures warm the mosquitoes swarm in south Louisiana. In an earlier post I mentioned the le,n scented geranium and other poster referred to other plants that help but the leaves do have to be crushes and rubbed on your skin to work. When I originally replied G was out of town and I forgot to ask him about the gadget he uses in the woods. It is a Thermacell. I think jmoore mentioned it. One unit will keep a 15'x15' area clear of mosquitoes, black flies and noseeums. There is no open flame or odor. He has a portable unit that he can clip to his belt or hang from his deer stand. That would be great when working in the yard. They also have lantern units. I have not looked at them yet but I want to see if a battery operated candle can be inserted to provide a glow. If so that would look nice hanging from the patio cover or set on a table. I like the idea of no odor and nothing on the skin. Available at Walmart or any sporting goods outlet. BTW I have walked through the woods where G hunts. I could see black clouds of mosquitoes swarming outside the effective perimeter of the unit but did not get a single bite from the monsters.

[ElizabethB]

After talking to G this AM about the Termacell he came home this afternoon with one of the lantern types. It is 7 1/2" tall without the hanger. There are 8 LED lights in the base that run off of 4 AA batteries. Gives a nice glow. The chemical wafer fits on the top and the butane cartrige screws into that. Too cool for mosquitoes tonight but will test it out in the next day or 2. It really looks good. The body is a dark aged bronze colored plastic. The sides are frosted plastic to look like frosted glass. Really better looking than I expected. HMMMM think I like this. No odor and no need to put anything on my skin.

Thanks to my Honey I won't get eaten up by mosquitoes, black flies or noseeums.

[webmaster]

I want to post a note about ElizabethB's suggestion of Thermacell. Thermacell is a popular product used by hunters and anglers for repelling mosquitoes. Thermacell works by spreading a cloud of insecticide call Allethrin.

Thermacell is not an organic solution to mosquitoes. There are a number of scientific papers about this class of insecticide. Here is a summary of those studies as posted on Wikipedia:

The allethrins are a pair of related synthetic compounds used in insecticides. They are synthetic pyrethroids, a synthetic form of a chemical found naturally in the chrysanthemum flower. They were first synthesized in the United States by Milton S. Schechter in 1949. Allethrin was the first pyrethroid.

The compounds have low toxicity for humans and birds, and are used in many household insecticides such as RAID as well as mosquito coils. They are, however, highly toxic to fish and bees.

From this scientific fact sheet:
https://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/pyrethrins.pdf

Pyrethrins are highly toxic to fish and tadpoles. They
affect their skin touch receptors and balance organs
(4).
• Pyrethrins are toxic to beneficial insect (such as
honeybees) and many aquatic invertebrates (4).

[FriedGreenTomatoes]

All the lemon talks makes me wonder if maybe just lemon juice would work. Safe for the skin and cheap enough to dump all over lol.

[applestar]

You could maybe use frozen concentrate or bottled lemon juice (do they still have those in cute lemon shaped plastic bottles?) I would totally use fresh lemon juice if I lived where I could grow a lemon tree or two or three....

There is a recipe for sliced whole lemon and sprigs of rosemary poured over with boiling water then steeped overnight. Supposed to be great for no-seeums. not sure about mosquitoes.

That swing set area -- I forgot to mention I also let garlic mustard "naturalize" there. And we were talking about garlic greens and I'd mentioned garlic chives. I don't want garlic mustard around the house, but maybe I'll scatter garlic chive seeds all along the edge of the patio I actually already have a lot of "excess" self seeded garlic chives in the garden that I could transplant.

I don't know if onion smell would also help but Egyptian walking onions are amazingly hardy. They grow through the winter, and its almost impossible to kill the top sets. I found a new clump of onions growing in the thick turf about a foot outside one of the garden beds. Apparently I dropped some of the top sets least year/fall?.

Right now, with frost warnings still being announced here and there, lemon balm, mints, garlic mustard, garlic chives, and egyptian onions are all growing like mad. So they will be in full growth by the time mosquito season arrives, whereas geraniums, lemon verbena, or lemon grass will just be getting started.

Lemon eucalyptus has been touted as "more effective than deet". I wonder if there are anything other than eucalyptus that has the "eucalyptus" scent?

I have switched my body soap from cocoa/shea butter and mango moisturizing winter soap to to lemon grass/lemon verbena summer soap, and will be combining with eucalyptus soap soon (I stick the two bars together). I'm making a new batch of rosemary scented shampoo (I just stuff the shampoo bottle with rosemary sprigs and fill with unscented kids shampoo.) this year, I think I'll make rosemary and lemongrass shampoo.

[FriedGreenTomatoes]

Applestar, I told my fiance about you planting lemon balm near your swing set, and we agreed that that was a great idea! The house we bought has a few healthy clumps in the front flower bed. We decided we could dig a few up and put them out back near our deck. His idea is to hit them with the mower or weed sacked if we plan to spend long periods of time out there. I hope that works! Thanks for the idea!-FGT

[applestar]

I was watching recorded this week's episode of Elementary, and Holms who in this incarnation is an avid bee hobbyist was telling Watson that the assassin had established an Africanized bee colony on a jogging route of his severely allergic target to be attacked and stung to death, probably by using lemongrass oil as lure.

...so I had to look it up:

Lemon Grass
Lemongrass works conveniently as well as the pheromone created by the honeybee's nasonov gland, also known as attractant pheromone. Because of this lemon grass oil can be used as a lure when trapping swarms or attempting to draw the attention of hived bees. Be warned, however, that lemon grass oil can cause a robbing behavior if it is used within or on a weak hive.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Beekeeping ... ntial_Oils

[rainbowgardener]

Interesting! But lemon grass is more intensely lemony than lemon balm. And lemon grass oil is the concentrated essence of the lemon grass. So rest assured, your lemon balm will not lure in swarms of bees - I have tons of the stuff. Bees do like their flowers, but they don't come in swarms, just the occasional one or two.

[applestar]

Oh yes. I should have said I haven't had any problems.

[ElizabethB]

Just a comment. Commercially produced citronella oil and citronella candles are not technically organic. In addition to the inert ingredients the essential oil is a synthetic produced in a lab and not extracted from plants.

[mark>ricca]

I won't claim this as organic but I was directed to use 1 cup of lemon scented ammonia and 1 cup lemon scented dish liquid into a hose end sprayer and dilute over 20 gallons of water. (about 4 tsp per gallon)

The recommendation called for an application of 3 times a week over the entire lawn to drive the mosquitoes away.

I haven't done it consistently enough to judge it's effectiveness.

I really do need to find something though because we have Asian Tiger Mosquitoes and they are horrible.

Has anyone been able to successfully bring Dragonflies or Damesflies into their environment?

[A Happy Seedling]

Yes, you have to catch the dragonflies (big ones go nicely into butterfly nets!) and put in big jars with 'skeeters and some common garden weeds. If you put in enough plants you don't have to poke holes in the lid. Then just wait. Once they get around to breeding you release half of them into the yard, and let the other half breed again. Eventually let them all out. If you have enough skeeters they will stay near your home.

[applestar]

Have you actually done this? How big a "jar"? How long did it take?

[A Happy Seedling]

Took several months to get rid of al the mosquitoes in the area (a few houses adjacent to mine were also mosquito-free!) but it was worth it; you can use as big a (GLASS!) jar as you will catch dragonflies: less dragonflies-->less breeding-->less offspring-->less space taken.

[applestar]

So you've done it? How long did you need to keep the dragonflies in the jar? What kind of jars did you use?

Please describe the process step by step. I would try it if I could understand the whole process.

[pepperhead212]

So where is the water in which the dragonflies breed? Dragonflies go through a "nymph" stage (sort of the larvae and pupae in one) in the water, and feed on things like mosquito larvae, and other aquatic life.

[A Happy Seedling]

I didn't use water. They got used to it and laid eggs on the leaves of the weeds in the jar, and the nymphs stayed in the shade underneath some leaves (on the soft, cool, shaded moss in the corner) until they grew up. Simple! As I said it took several months.