How to Prevent Mosquitoes

 

I love the outdoors but hate the insects, especially mosquitoes. Let’s look at, how to repel mosquitoes naturally. When weeding, watering, checking on my sprouts, or just to hand out in the sun enjoying my days before our summer comes crashing in with the season.

I bet you all out there would like an answer to the mosquitoes’ problems too, right? You might already know this but I am going to brief you as a reminder or if you don’t already know, you know now. It’s not a rock-solid solution but I hope it helps a little with mosquitoes’ problems.

I don’t like mosquitoes because they carry the west nile virus. Some not all. However, I like to be safe than sorry. Symptoms are fever, headache, rash, or vomiting. About 75% of infected people won’t get any symptoms but 20% will get the symptoms. If you are the 75% lucky you. If not please be careful.

Preventions

First thing is to make sure that you do not have standing water anywhere. Those places are the perfect place for mosquitoes to lay their eggs. Temperatures are going higher and their eggs are starting to hatch.

Once the temperatures reach 50ºF those six legs, blood-sucking, west nile virus-carrying insects will come out of hibernation and on the march to find their prey. Which are us.

Remove old tires, plastic cover, old containers, and buckets that can and will hold standing water. It could be from rain, watering, or snow/dew.

Get rid of tall grasses or shrubs that are not being taken care off. Mosquitoes love to live in them.

Plant mosquitoes repelling plants which I will be talking about.

Mosquitoes Repelling Plants

Planting plants that help repel mosquitoes will also help out with fewer mosquitoes in your garden and places you love to sit and sip your tea. One of my favorites it lemongrass.

Lemongrass is great to repel mosquitoes because they hate the lemon smell that comes off of the lemongrass plant. It is an oil call citronella oil. Some weird reason they just hate that smell. I for one love that smell. I don’t know what their problems are. ☺

It’s my favorite because I use the lemongrass in my cooking, so delicious. You can read a little about lemongrass here.

Basil is great in some dishes I make. Use it as a garnish or just adding it to spaghetti. However, there are some chemicals in basil that the mosquitoes just hate.

Marigold guys this is worth mentioning because not only does marigolds repel mosquitoes. They must hate the sweet scent of the flower, maybe. But they also attract aphids from your vegetables. I have some growing with my artemisia lactiflora.

Catnip here a warning about using catnip. It’s weed for cats so if you’re a cat person, lady, man or cat lover this is great for you if, not then I suggest you plant something else.

There’s a chemical call nepetalactone that the catnip has that the mosquitoes would love to stay away from if they can help it. They are in the mint family and are very invasive as well.

If you’re not a cat person I would say I love the smell of lavender, fresh or dry.

Lavender is awesome the wafting smell as you brush by them. This smell ward off mosquitoes as well. The mosquitoes hate the smell, which loved by humans. Which is better because we can’t sting them but they can sting us.

Thyme is also an herb which you can plant to combat mosquitoes. If you are considering using DEET try using thyme instead. It seems to work as well or better than DEET.

Rosemarythe woody smell scent is the exact thing that keeps mosquitoes at bay.

Conclusion

How most of these herb works is crushed some leaves and rub it on your skin if you are going hiking and walking in the forest where there are insects around.

However, if you’re not hiking or walking and just enjoying your garden then you don’t have to rub anything on your skin unless you want to as a prevention. Those of you that are allergic to insect bites might consider rubbing some on yourself.

Most plants do well to repel insects just by being there. Like lemongrass, lavender, catnip, thyme, and rosemary.

What I love about these herbs that are planted in my garden is that a far from being insect repellent it is also great for cooking dishes and as garnish. In other words, you got insect combating herbs and health benefits for your health. It’s a win-win, situation. This is how to repel mosquitoes naturally. I hope it will help you out a little.

---

Disclaimer: We all know that these plants do not 100% repel insects, especially mosquitoes. We can certainly try this method over using harmful chemicals that are traditionally used to get rid of the insects. We want a chemical free area for our family with small children or pets. I for one do. There are so many methods out there that you may want to try. Thank you.