ORGANIC MOSQUITO CONTROL

[gone cuttin]

I have had great success with essential oils and mixing my own sprays. We use both of these on ourselves and our horses:

For mosquitoes: 5 drops Palo Santo in 16oz spray bottle filled with water and 1tsp. Thieves Household Cleaner (or any liquid soap). Most users find as good results as commercial DEET sprays!

Bug Spray: 3 drops each: Dill, Idaho Tansy, Lemon, Palo Santo & peppermint. Mix in 1 qt. spray bottle filled with water and 1tsp. Thieves Household leaner.

[Greywolf]

What is the best way to extract oils from plants like this that I grow?

I know - I could always do a websearch for it, but if it is said here it makes THIS PLACE on the web that much BETTER!

[rainbowgardener]

You can make what I call a flavored oil very easily. Take a glass jar and stuff it with your leaves, mint or rosemary or whatever, packed in. Then fill the jar with a good neutral salad oil (not olive oil, something with less flavor of its own). Put it on a sunny window sill and let it sit for a week or so. Strain the leaves out and then repeat with fresh leaves but the same oil.

But if you want true essential oils, I think the only way is a little still. You can get small distillation set ups on line for pretty inexpensive. Santa brought me one for Christmas, but I have yet to use it, because all the herbs were dried by then. Soon though!

[syntheticbutterfly]

I don't think I have ever been mosquito bit around areas where oranges, lemons, and limes grow in abundance....

(All of the above are considered "CITRUS" fruits, also grapefruit and some others)

THINK ABOUT IT! Isn't that true?

(Personally observed)

Though there is always an exception- citrus fruits are a major crop here in Spain but we still have major mozzie issues. Wondering though maybe if the issue here is causing by the ancient watering systems still used locally which water can stand in for a while making a perfect mozzie breeding ground.

[The Helpful Gardener]

A few goldfish in any standing water eliminate that issue pretty quick; any good aquaculture will deal with this issue...

HG

[applestar]

Yep. Feeder goldfish and what they call "minnows" are really inexpensive at pet shops like PetSmart. The "minnows" stay smaller -- about 2" after a full season, compared to the goldfish that grew to about 3". I even had one minnow each in 6" and 8" containers growing rice plants. Got a nod of approval from the County Mosquito inspector too (long story detailed elsewhere in the forum).

[Greywolf]

I have often wondered if a pond or small pool with minnows or even sport fish would be a good idea.

I have known people before who brought home live trout, bass or catfish and kept them in something like that - or even a large aquarium - until they were what they considered "Ripe Eating Size". Aside from feeding them in other ways, it was not unusual for a mosquito zapper to be hung out over the end of a small dock so that the fish would gain the fallen bugs as a dietary supplement so to speak...

One old friend of mine in the Sarasota Florida area had an arrangement like that, and everytime the bug zapper flashed you could see the fish making ripples around it on the surface of the water.

In Arizona, on the north side of I-8 is a small town I can't remember the name of where there is a Trout Farm (or there was anyway) made of metal troughs over a hundred fifty feet long with fish food machines (like bubblegum machines, but for a nickle they sold a handful of fish food) that was free for the public to visit. I think it's withing fifty miles or closer to the California/Arizona line. It may have been I-40, it's been a long while

Strange to see huge schools of fish living in tanks with seperators like that...

[The Helpful Gardener]

When I was raising fish during the summer I would throw a bunch of fry in a wading pool and not feed a thing and they grew to be three times the size of tank raised unless I was feeding frozen prepared foods or brine shrimp (still twice as big as those)...

Fish: Nature's mosquito control...

HG

[cherlynn]

My daughter has had an ongoing problem with Mosquitos. Last year she sprayed a garlic spray...listed to be natural...around her yard. Seems like something easy enough to make. In fact, I believe I saw it mentioned in another thread...here it is:

http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/v ... rlic+spray

[jmoore]

Get a Thermacell and plenty of refill packages. Those things are worth their weight in gold for repelling bugs. I've sat in plenty of super bug infested areas during hunting season and the Thermacell will keep virtually anything at bay.

http://www.mosquitorepellent.com/

[emmdavies]

I am one of those people who just gets eaten alive by mosquitoes, so naturally I had to search for a thread like this!

I use Citronella candles on my patio, but the scent makes my stomach cramp and hurt. I am not sure why. It's not that it makes me nauseous, but it literally makes me get stomach pains and my throat feels odd. I always remember having it happen whenever we would be using anything citronella when I was growing up.

I am going to try some of these alternatives, because Citronella and I don't get along too well!

I wonder if it's an allergy??

[cynthia_h]

No, it's not an allergy; an allergic reaction involves the release of histamines, which are directly implicated in inflammation. Anti-histamine medications, including those sold over-the-counter, can be helpful.

What you describe sounds like a chemical reaction (I've had enough of them to recognize at least one set of symptoms, unfortunately). I just went to the website of one citronella candle manufacturer and found--as usual--that 0.5% of the item is "Oil of citronella." The other 99.5% of the compound, termed "inert ingredients," are specified. However, the three listed "inert ingredients" seem unlikely to be the whole story: "Soybean Oil, Palm Oil, Paraffin Wax [sic]."

Often, what we react to is something unrevealed in the "inert" ingredients, perhaps a volatile organic compound (VOC) or other potentially toxic compound. Toxicity is dose-dependent, but many people have thresholds lower than the regulations admit for a chemical reaction. (Canada is phasing out citronella as an insecticide due to toxicity data-gap concerns, according to Wikipedia; the European Union phased out all use of citronella as an insect repellent in 2006.)

I've dealt with VOCs as well as I can in my own home, but am at the mercy of others whenever I go out in public: perfumes, after-shave lotions, quick-light BBQ briquets in the neighbors' yards--anything like these can bring on either a "two-inhale" migraine or a respiratory "freeze" where I can neither inhale nor exhale. The respiratory "freeze" isn't asthma (one of my sisters had asthma all of our childhood), and it's not anything I can re-create in the doctor's office, either, to help her make a diagnosis. But it's definitely a reaction to chemicals; it's too immediate to be anything else.

Surely Native Americans/First Nations people had protection against mosquitoes. I wonder what it was?

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[rainbowgardener]

Oil of geranium is actually a better repellant than citronella and perhaps less likely to aggravate sensitivities (though I can't say that for sure). There's s lots of products around now based on it like geraniol impregnated wristbands. I used to have a little thing for our deck that was a geraniol cake with a little fan blowing across it. It worked quite well if you set it up a half hr or so before you went out, to give a little time for the scent to accumulate. I would like to find it again.

[LA47]

Where would I go to find oil of geranium? I think I would like that better than oil of garlic.

[rainbowgardener]

If you just google geraniol mosquito repellant, you will find lots of products based on it. Or search on geranium oil and you can get the pure essential oil. Soak a pad with it and put it over a candle/ lantern/ light bulb, where it will get warmed but not burned. That will diffuse the scent. Or use an oil diffuser (like the reed types).