Category Archives: Outdoor Fun

Homemade Mosquito Control

While DEET has long been the recommended go-to for warding off mosquitoes, there are many who prefer an all-natural, homemade option, particularly when they are applying the repellent to their children.  We have some options for you but caution you to remember that all-natural options wear off quickly, so be prepared to re-apply every couple of hours.  Also, please remember that essential oils can trigger skin reactions, particularly in the young, so please do a patch test before using.  Finally, essential oils degrade quickly in sunlight, so it is a good idea to store your homemade repellant in a dark, well labelled bottle in a dark location.  

Mosquitoes, specifically female mosquitoes, bite when they are preparing to lay eggs.  They need the protein to lay and have an uncanny ability to find us from our CO2 plumes.  Repellants are exactly that – they repel the mosquito rather than making us “invisible” to them.  Mosquitoes are put off by certain smells, particularly garlic, although we promise we do not suggest you slather yourself in garlic before leaving the house! 

While mosquito repellant plants don’t really exist (you can check out an earlier blog post for more on that), the fragrance from certain plants, when ground down to the oils, will put mosquitoes off.  These include essential oils from lavender, catnip, eucalyptus, lemon grass and other “mosquito repellant plants” (AKA plant oils).

In all your recipes you will want to combine your essential oil with a carrier oil (Olive, Almond, or Grapeseed are good choices) at a 100 drop to 2 tablespoon ratio.  To preserve your recipe, you will need an alcohol, which you can add at a ratio of ½ teaspoon to 2 Tablespoons of oil.  Isopropyl alcohol or vodka are good options to use.  You will also want to add in some witch hazel.  If you have it lying around (and who doesn’t) a teaspoon of vegetable glycerin will help keep everything combined and reduce settling if you want to try using water instead of oil (we don’t find this to be as effective, especially in our heat and the resulting sweating).  Now for the recipes!  

Base:

2 tablespoons of oil 

100 drops of essential oils 

½ teaspoon of alcohol 

½ teaspoon Witch Hazel 

1. Herb garden:  Add 50 drops of basil and 50 drops of rosemary essential oils 

2. Citrus: 100 drops of lemon grass, or orange, or a combination of both 

3. Geranium: 100 drops 

4. Lavender: 100 drops 

5. Mint:  100 drops 

6. Eucalyptus: 100 drops 

7. Citronella: 100 drops (caveat here, as we acknowledge that this may not be what you want to smell like!) 

You can get inventive with your recipe but don’t lose sight of the fact that we are trying to repel mosquitoes, not delve into perfumery. 

If you would like to keep some stand-by’s available for camping trips or to keep in your car, homemade options may not be a good idea.  Sunlight and heat will degrade them.  We recommend you visit the EPA website for more guidance on skin repellents.  They also have an excellent search tool for finding the one that is right for you.  

If your mosquito issue isn’t limited to camping trips, but instead closer to home in your back yard, we can help.  We offer an all-natural service for your yard to keep those mosquitoes away using a combination of garlic (you won’t notice the smell, but the mosquitoes will!) rosemary and mint.  Even our combination services rely on garlic around flowering plants, as we are very focused on protecting our pollinators and minimizing our impact in a yard.  We want the mosquitoes out, along with their diseases, while keeping birds, butterflies and all other wildlife happy and content.  

Finally, as we cannot harp on about it enough, remember that your number one source for mosquitoes is water.  Just one teaspoon is enough water for them to breed in and managing that is a vital part of what we do.  If you want to reduce the numbers in your yard clean your gutters, remove all containers and dump out water after it rains.  If you want to learn more about our service don’t hesitate to give us a call.  We are always happy to talk mosquito! 🦟 

April 22^nd, 1970 marks the birth of Earth Day. Millions of people gathered to protest the negative impacts of industrial development on our planet. Since that time, Earth Day has grown into a movement with participation by over 192 countries and over one billion people. Earth Day this year is focusing on ending plastic pollution. Currently, 300 million TONS (yes, tons!) of plastic is produced each year, and only 10% of that is recycled. According to some sources, more plastic has been produced and used in the last decade than in the entirety of the 20^th century. While the push to increase recycling continues, this year Earth Day Network is asking everyone to commit to reducing the use of plastics and instead switch to sustainable alternatives. You can learn more about pledging and committing to reduce waste by clicking here.

Houston has its own website for Earth Day where you can request more information, or you can like them on Facebook. Big changes start with each and every one of us, so get involved and start making an impact!

Speaking of making an impact, last year Mosquito Joe partnered with Nothing But Nets in their fight against malaria. For each new customer serviced during Mosquito Control Awareness Week, Mosquito Joe donated $10 to Nothing But Nets. Each donation paid for an insecticide-treated net for a family in Sub-Sahara Africa. We collected $14,100 in donations as a company and raised over $20,000 with donation matching. That’s over 2,000 nets! You can read more about the partnership here.

World Malaria Day is April 25^th, and what better time to reach out and make a donation! Every 2 minutes a child dies from malaria and nearly half the world’s population is at risk. Visit their website to learn more about Nothing But Nets. We look forward to continuing our work with them this year and with your help, plan on exceeding our donation from last year.

In keeping with our global outlook, we want to make mention of one last celebration this month! Arbor Day falls on April 27^th this year. There are so many activities and ways to get involved that it would be impossible to list them all here. You can visit this link for information specific to Texas and find some local goings-on, including Montgomery, Conroe, Brenham and Bryan.

Arbor Day has its roots in Nebraska when Julius Morton made his way there from Detroit. He became the editor of Nebraska’s first Newspaper and disseminated information on agriculture and trees to his audience. Pioneers who read his paper started planting trees to help protect them from the wind and to provide building material for their homes. These days, Arbor Day is recognized in all 50 states and looks to the future, rather than the past. Arbor Day is about recognizing the vital role that trees play in our world and the needs of future generations.

So this April, replace your plastics, donate a net and plant a tree! Together we can all make the world a better place.

If you are anything like us gardening starts in earnest this month! While our seeds have been germinating since last month, March is the best time to get outside and really make things happen. There are some really awesome (and free) sources on the web that can help. Check out this full list of veggies and the best dates to plant them and when to move those seeds outside organized by zip code.

Start in early March by mowing your lawn, even if it doesn’t need it. Mowing will prevent weeds from flowering and re-seeding. You can fill any bare patches, but wait to feed your lawn until it is actively growing. This is also a great time to get those seedlings planted, particularly your herbs, allowing them some time to get established before the heat really hits.  It is also the best month to plant your fruit trees and shrubs and spring flowers.  Prune your roses and Crepe Myrtles, but be gentle. There are a lot of great “how-to’s” out there on how to do it right, and it doesn’t involve butchering the poor things.

Spring into Gardening

Most folks start off the spring gardening season by laying out fresh mulch. There is no doubt that this one update can make a dramatic visual improvement to your yard. But did you know that mulch is full of mosquito eggs? It’s not something we gave much thought to until we started Mosquito Joe, but mulch contains thousands of eggs.

The first thing we do when the mulch goes down? We water it, unknowingly hatching all those eggs. Always let us know when you are preparing to put down new mulch. We will make notes in your service account and make sure the technicians treat that mulch for you to minimize the bites when you are outside gardening.

Another big preparation at our house is the annual unpacking of the Hummingbird feeders. We are up to about 20 at this point, and the number of Hummingbirds increases every year. March is the time to get those out – it may already be a bit late.  Visit this awesome Hummingbird tracker (you can even participate with your own sightings) to see when they are arriving in our area. Just make sure you don’t forget the other birds and load up your feeders.

We also recommend that you clean out your birdbaths and refresh the water. Remember that stagnant water is a great source for mosquitoes, so make sure you keep it refreshed. Our technicians will always dump (if they can lift it) and treat any birdbaths when they come, but keeping an eye on that water is best for the birds and for you.

One of our favorite places to visit for plants, gardening inspiration and some great classes is The Arbor Gate. They have some great vegetable planting calendars, an inspirational blog, and even an app you can download that lets you calculate mulch needs, comes with a plant database and is chock full of how-to videos.

Whatever you are planting and planning this spring, we wish you a green thumb and hope you enjoy your time outside without those pesky mosquitoes ruining it!

There is a lot of misinformation out there about mosquitoes and the weather. We have folks who call us in August and ask to put their service on hold until the spring, thinking that mosquito season is over or at least that the populations diminish. Nine times out of ten those customers end up calling us back saying “I don’t know what I was thinking!” or “You stopped treating and they came back!”.

It is important to us that our customers make their own decisions about when they want us to service their yard, so we will never pressure someone to continue service if they don’t believe they need it. We don’t have contracts, never tie folks into services and make sure our customers know that they are the boss.

Having said that, this is a great time of year to take a look at what is actually going on down here in the deep south. Unlike the northern and eastern states, things work a little differently in south Texas.

When Mosquitoes Winter in South Texas

Typically, mosquito hibernation starts once we experience three deep freezes in a row or temperatures fall consistently under 50 degrees. As you might have guessed, this rarely happens around these parts. What you might not know, however, is that mosquitoes in the Houston area are thought to have developed an adaptation to our mild winters. Scientists have noted that these local mosquitoes have adapted a hibernation pattern where they awaken on warm days and “sleep” on the few-and-far-between cold ones. Even at temperatures of 50 degrees, female mosquitoes are active and seeking out warm bodies from which to obtain a drink of blood.

Culiseta Inornata and Anopheles Freeborni are two of the species that live in our area and actually become MORE active during the cooler months.  If you have lived in Texas long enough you will remember being bitten on Christmas Day.

Tips and Tricks to Prevent Mosquitoes

So what can you do to help control that population in your yard? Firstly, if you are a customer remember that the longer we treat your yard, the more we prevent eggs from being laid around your home. Mosquito eggs are pretty resilient and can actually sit dormant for ten years before a drop of water can cause them to hatch. Come spring and the wet days of February, you will start seeing the effects of all that egg laying. Of course, it will also take us three services to break that life cycle in the spring. Customers who are treated year-round never have to worry and are able to maintain a yard rid of mosquitoes no matter what time of year it is.

What can you do if you are not a customer? We always tell folks to think like a mosquito. That sounds ridiculous, but I’m sure the majority of you have childproofed your home at some point in time. The number one advice to new parents on how to effectively do that is to get on your hands and knees and see your home from a toddlers perspective. Now we are not suggesting you crawl around your yard like a mosquito, but if you think like one you can act accordingly.

Mosquitoes need water to hatch the next generation of youngsters. The easiest way for them to populate is to lay eggs in stagnant water. Your number one focus should be making sure that there is no standing water in your yard. Remember, just a capful of water is enough for 300 eggs. So don’t keep your focus just on the large puddles or kiddie pools.  Look at kids’ toys and plant pot saucers, soda cans, open garbage containers and blocked gutters. Even cap-less fence posts make a great home for mosquito eggs.

If a female mosquito cannot locate any standing water, she will lay her eggs on moist ground. These are the areas where eggs are most likely to hatch after a rain. Pine needles, debris piles and leaf piles are the most likely areas to be attractive as they keep the ground dark and moist. When the leaves start falling and you get out to clean your yard make sure you get rid of this debris rather than piling it behind the shed.

Finally, remember that the introduction of new mulch also brings the introduction of new mosquito eggs so don’t be surprised if you see more mosquitoes after you finish your winter landscaping.

We are always here to help and treat year-round (with good reason) so don’t hesitate to give us a call at 979-859-5998 if you have any questions!