Bitten by the bug
Now summer is in full swing so are the bugs. The garden appears to be a sort of bug soup, they all swarm around and flitter about. If you’re like me you’re horribly allergic to bug bites, every time I’m bitten I have a hideous reaction to it, for me going out in the garden can be like playing Russian roulette but it won’t stop me, for I love being outside, just sitting there soaking it all in.
We like to make sure that any standing water has a squeeze of washing up liquid in it, that way any mosquito that tries to lay eggs in the puddles, loses surface tension and drowns before it can complete the cycle. It’s important to walk the garden just to make sure there is no standing water anywhere. We either tip it or soap it, job done.
The less places there are for them to be the happier we are and the less bites we have. Some do still come inside though so I have to be ready for them I use flypaper window stickers and carbon dioxide traps on the deck easily made with a pop bottle, 1 1/3 a cup of hot water, 1 g of yeast and a quarter cup of sugar. I heat the water till nearly boiling then I add the sugar and stir to dissolve it. when the water and sugar mixture is cool I add the yeast, stir that then add it to the pop bottle, which I have cut in half and inverted the neck part to stand inside the lower part of the bottle. This then acts like a funnel and guide the mosquitoes in because the yeast and sugar together make carbon dioxide and that’s the bait to draw those little critters in to their death. It lasts up two weeks, sometimes less if it rains and washes it out. You can clean this out and re do when the yeast and sugar are spent. I’ve found putting a little scotch tape or duct tape around the edge of the two parts of the bottle helps a lot, stand this on something flat and sturdy if you can. I hope this works as well for you as it does for us every year. I place the trap where they congregate the most as well. That way you can get some before they invade your home and unless you’re allergic to yeast it’s pretty safe around the house, no harsh chemicals and it’s safe for our animals too.
So, with our deck going up in the summer break and our mosquito traps outside it should be perfect, I can just see us out there enjoying the warm evenings, barbecuing and having the family over, marvellous.
The next thing I’d like to start planning for is canning, I couldn’t do any last year because we’d only just moved, and our belongings hadn’t arrived, so this year I’d like to make up for it. For me personally, there’s nothing as nice as a pantry full of bottled somethings ready to give you the taste of summer in the very depths of winter, even the colours of the contents lift my spirits on the most wintry of days. I want to be ready this year.
Once that’s done I can rest a bit, who am I kidding? I have tons of knitting and crochet projects to do for presents this year, mmmm maybe I should get that organized too.
Time to get cracking ......