TowerNetWeb

If you like to sit outdoors in the summer, you almost certainly have a bit of a garden, patio or deck that you like to relax on of a summer’s evening. With a few flowers for colour and fragrance, it makes a perfect place to relax. Add a water feature and a cold drink and I am away.

That is until five or six o’ clock, at which time the light starts to weaken and the mosquitoes come out. They spoil it for me or at least they used to until I discovered neat little tricks to hold the mosquitoes at bay – out of my yard and into someone else’s. Not that I wish mosquitoes on my friends, but they will go somewhere else, if they do not come to me.

The first thing to do is learn a bit about the mosquito. Mosquitoes are not really very strong fliers and they are easily damaged and easily blown off course. Therefore, most of the mosquitoes you meet in your garden were born there. Some people say tht mosquitoes do not travel over a few metres from where they were born.

They like to lay their eggs in still water and it need not be that much. Millions of mosquitoes are born in still water that collects in the leaves of living plants. Now, I am not recommending that you cut all your plants down, but you did ought to clean up any old junk in the garden that can retain water.

You can fill in holes and indentations in paths, stow away watering cans and unused flower pots, clean blocked gutters, clear away fallen leaves and maybe think about the flowers that you are buying next time you are in the garden centre. If you have a water feature, make sure that there are fish in it that eat insects – some do not.

The next thing to do is find out which plant life mosquitoes do not like and they do have their preferences, just like we do. Mosquitoes hate anything that smells of lemons. So, you can plant, lemon balm, citronella, lemon trees, lemon grass and anything else that smells like lemons.

If the plants can not quite produce enough lemon smell some evenings, you can help them with lemon-scented candles or citronella oil rubbed straight onto your skin. It is a completely natural oil, so should not harm you, your kids or your pets. Dogs suffer from mosquitoes as much as we do.

As stated above, mosquitoes are not strong fliers, so a good fan, usually kills hundreds of them a night by blowing them against walls and the fan’s blades. A favourite of mine on a bad night, is a mosquito trap.

One that has highly-charged electrical wires behind an alluring ultra-violet light, the sound of them crackling away on the electrified wire is very pleasing and extremely effective

One mosquito trap can clear a whole garden, but my all-time favourite is the tennis racquet type bug-zapper, the one that looks like a kiddie’s tennis racquet. Anything that gets past your defences, is a certain gonner, if you have a racquet bug zapper

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with work on mosquito bite treatment problems. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Bite Swellings.

So, you’ve got some time off work, college or school and you want to get in the open air and enjoy it. Maybe even go on vacation. What a good idea! But what happens when you get where you are going? The mosquitoes come out to get you.

If it were not so routine, it would sound like Freddy Kruger and Nightmare on Elm Street. The female mosquitoes need blood to create eggs and they seek it out as insatiably as any vampire in a horror movie, while the males go sipping nectar from plants like fairies.

Well, that is the nightmare setting, but it is not that far from the truth either. For many peoples in the world it is also a actual life and death question. Millions of people die every year from malaria and tons more from dengue too. Yet both of these diseases are curable as are most of the other mosquito-borne diseases like Yellow Fever, Japanese Jungle Encephalopathy and Nile fever.

The first thing to understand is that usually these diseases can be inoculated against, particularly if you are going on vacation. The next thing to keep in mind – it might help – is that not all mosquitoes are the same. For example, in Thailand, the dengue-bearing mosquito (often called the ‘Egyptian’) comes out during the day time and so bites then too. Between about an hour before dawn and an hour after dusk, whereas the malaria-carrying mosquito, the Anopheles, is a night time huntress.

I am not suggesting that you can slacken your vigilance during the day, although many people take for granted that they can. Nobody wants dengue fever either.

So, what can you do? Before you go anywhere, read up on the district or check with medical experts. That part is not complicated, particularly, if you know how to explore the Internet. Then prepare yourself with inoculations if the risk is serious enough in your judgment or a medical expert’s judgment. In my estimation, that is the minimum that a conscientious person ought to be expected to do to protect him or herself, the family and the community at large.

Then there are a few other things you can do. For instance, wear voluminous clothes, but long sleeves and long trousers. If you are thin on top by choice or not, wear a hat or cap. Dress in socks or stockings in the evening to safeguard your toes. Get a good-quality mosquito repellent and put it on your bare skin, as often as necessary by the manufacturer, which is typically every four or five hours.

You could rationally stop there, but I like to go a bit further, if the situation calls for it. If I am outside in the garden at home or in a hotel, I like to have one of those tennis racquet style electric bug zappers with me. They are great for zapping the odd mosquito that buzzes you. They are good for clearing the bedroom before retiring too and lastly, if I’m renting, hiking, camping or caravaning, I may find space for a rechargeable lantern-style bug zapper too.

If the little so-and-sos are going to give me a fever, they are going to have to try very hard to do it.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with work on mosquito bite treatment problems. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Bite Swellings.

Anyone with a beautiful garden, patio or deck will certainly enjoy sitting outside on a warm summer’s day or evening. But if there is one issue that can blight it for you, it is mosquitoes. Sometimes, it only takes one of two persistent mosquitoes to make your blood seethe. Mosquitoes are a nuisance for certain, but they can also be a health hazard, spreading dengue fever and malaria and several other really horrible diseases. So how do you go about keeping mosquitoes out of your garden?

Maybe you cannot realistically hope to keep mosquitoes out of your garden completely, but there are some things you can do to deter them and keep their numbers down. Stopping them breeding in your garden is the first step to take. Mosquitoes do not have a long flying range, many of the mosquitoes that bother you in your garden will have been born inyour garden.

Mosquitoes lay their eggs in stagnant water, so make sure that there is none in your garden. They will lay eggs in water butts, dogs’ bowls, water that has collected in old tyres, bottles and tins and your rubbish bins, so make sure that no water can collect anywhere. Blocked gutters are another breeding site. if you have a water feature, put fish in it to eat the larvae.

Mosquitoes detest the smell of lemon, so you could grow citronella plants, lemon thyme, lemon grass and even a lemon tree, if the climate is right. If not, you could burn citronella scented candles or oil in the vicinity They not only keep the mosquitoes at bay, but the aroma is very fresh and envigourating.

If they are still plaguing you, you may have to resort to mosquito repellent. You could drench your clothing with permethrin, like the army does for jungle combat or just smeer a deet-based product on your skin. There are also plenty of green mosquito repellents too, like lemon oil, citronella and eucalyptus oil.

Garlic is supposed to repel mosquitoes, so you could try growing garlic close at hand. It is also meant to repel ticks and has demonstrated to discourage greenfly (aphids) from roses. What could be better, particularly if you like garlic as well?

You could hang up one or two of those lamps that attract insects to them and them vapoourize them with a high voltage shock. These electric bug killers are particularly good for killing mosquitoes and house flies, which can also be a nuisance when you are sitting outside.

They are inexpensive and will last for years. They give off a pleasing glow and some claim to be able to clear areas of a quarter, a half and even a full acre of land of all flying insects by the use of the ultraviolet light and pheromones.

By using some or all of the above methods of keeping mosquitoes out of your garden, you should be able to enjoy your drink, a chat or a snooze in complete peace and freedom from flies and mosquitoes.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several topics, but is currently concerned with work on mosquito bite treatment problems. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Bite Swellings.

categories: mosquitoes,insects,diseases,bites and stings,gardening,health and fitness,travel and leisure,advice,self help,families,africa,outdoors,general,other