GARDEN CAPSULE
The challenge: Despite policing your property regularly to dump any standing water, you still have an annoying number of mosquitoes.
The solution: Install some Spartan Mosquito Eradicator tubes around the perimeter of your property. Hang the tubes in protected places away from where people gather, at a height of about 6 feet. Female mosquitoes will drink the sugary bait, then die before they can lay eggs.
If you start at the beginning of the mosquito season, you’ll need two tubes per acre; if starting now, you’ll need four. The units typically remain effective for 90 days.
Pluses: The eradicators are simple to use and come with everything needed for installation: just add warm water to the tube, shake it and hang each tube from a shrub or tree.
By using this product to control mosquitoes, you’ll avoid the consequences of some other controls: misting systems put harmful pesticides into the environment and zappers are more effective at killing beneficial insects such as fireflies than they are at killing mosquitoes.
Minuses: If you don’t install the eradicators at the beginning of the mosquito season, it will take a little longer to gain control of the mosquito population. If an eradicator gets flooded or knocked down and emptied, it will need to be replaced.
Sources: For more information plus a list of retail and online stores, see SpartanMosquito .com. Spartan Mosquito Eradicators are packed two units per box and sell for about $20.