Dear Farm,
What are the best ways to repel mosquitoes in our yard without using chemicals? Should I use a bug zapper?

West Nile Nervous in PA

Dear W.N. Nervous,

Great Question! Let’s start with the bug zapper. The University of Delaware conducted a study (Entomological News [107(2): 77-82]) where bugs were collected from a bug zapper in a suburban neighborhood nightly for an entire summer. Their results showed that only .22% (less than a quarter of one percent!) of the bugs killed were actually biting insects like female mosquitoes and female biting gnats. Of the rest killed, 48% were harmless aquatic insects from nearby water sources, an important food source for fish. Another 13.5% of insects killed were beneficial and predator insects, the kind that naturally keep pest bugs at bay. The bottom line here is this: Bug Zappers are Bad News!!

So what effective measures can be taken? Let’s start with a basic lesson in the life of a typical mosquito. Mosquitoes need standing water to reproduce. Some varieties can go from egg to adult in as little as four days, but most average 10-14 days. Here is a handy picture from wuvcd.org to show you their quick life cycle:

It is amazing how quickly a puddle in a bucket or old tire can become filled with mosquito larvae, so the first step in controlling the buggers is to…

Check your property for standing water. If you can eliminate the breeding grounds, you can help eliminate the pests. Remember to frequently change the water in any bird baths, and thoroughly scrub the sides of them for any eggs patiently waiting for the water level to get high enough. Check your house’s gutters for any obstructions. If you have a water feature such as a pond, consider adding a fountain of some kind so the water constantly moving. If this is not possible, there is a bacteria called Bacillus Thuringiensis Israelensis, or BTI, that can be added to the water to kill the mosquito larvae. BTI is considered non-toxic to humans and wildlife, but it should never be added to water intended for human consumption. You can learn more about BTI’s advantages and disadvantages here. You can purchase it through several places including Gardens Alive.

Encourage Natural Predators. Did you know that bats consume huge quantities of insects each night, and some varieties prefer the tasty treat of mosquitoes? Building or purchasing a bat house is a great way to control the bug population while helping to provide a home for an important member of our ecosystem. Bat Conservation International (BCI) has a great informational website including what to look for in a bat house and free plans to build your own. They also answer many common concerns about the safety of having bats on your property.

The Candle Trick. Citronella candles have been used for a long time, since 1882 in fact, to repel mosquitoes. They work best when there is little air movement-this helps to keep the smell around.

Plants for Protection! If essential oils help repel the little beasts, why not try the real plants? Citronella oil is present in several plants, including citrona geranium (also called the citronella plant), lemon balm, lemon tyme, and basil. Lemongrass is actually a cousin to Mana Grass, the main source for citronella essential oil, so go ahead try that one too. At the farm we currently offer lemon balm, lemon thyme, and basil for sale. We may have some lemongrass available later in the season. Maybe next year we’ll try growing the citrona geranium as well to complete our bug-free section.

Bring Out The Spray. Preventative measures are effective, but they do take time. Add to that the fact that mosquitoes can fly in from other places not so easy to control (up to 20 miles away!), and I’m sure they’ll still be some around to eat you at twilight. At the farm, we’ve tried a few of the natural bug sprays on the market. Burt’s Bees makes a yummy smelling eucalyptus and lemongrass spray. It is an oil base, so it worked nice as a moisturizer at the same time, but unfortunately it didn’t seem to last for any longer than an hour or so. We didn’t mind, but if you’ve got active kids running around trying to catch lightening bugs, it’s hard to pin them down every 15 minutes for re-application. This year we’re trying out one by Gardens Alive called Sting-Free. It’s not greasy, has a nice light geranium-like smell, and the package claims it repels mosquitoes, ticks, and black flies for 3 hours. So far it’s working nicely- we’ll have to let you know how well it worked during peak bug season. We’ve also heard great things about a bug lotion called Green Ban, and there are plenty of options to make your own bug repellent using a variety of essential oils like peppermint, lavendar, bergamot, cedrawood, lemongrass, pennyroyal, and eucalyptus. You can mix and match or follow some handy tips from this NaturoDoc article.

You Are What You Eat. The final step you can take is to make yourself less appealing from the inside-out. The verdict seems to be mixed on the true effectiveness of diet in preventing mosquito bites, but rumors have it that if you limit your intake of sugars (especially white sugar and high-fructose corn syrup) and alcoholic beverages, eat foods high in thiamin and eat plenty of garlic, they’ll prefer your more toxic friends. Either way, staying away from sugar, staying sober, and eating healthy sounds like a fine idea, bugs or no bugs.

If you have a question for Ask The Farm, please send it to wegrowveggies@msn.com with “Ask the Farm” in the subject line.

This was a common call of the 13th century Parisian street vendor. It’s also very appropriate this month at the farm! Beginning at next week’s CSA pick-up, the sugar snap peas will be making their delicate sweet presence known. How did peas wind up as porridge in the pot? Here’s brief (and sometimes strange!) snapshot of the pea’s long history:

Old and Broad Past: The exact origin of the first peas are unknown. There were pea seeds discovered in Spirit Cave grown by the Hoabinhian people of Thailand/Burma carbon-dated at 9750 BC. There were more found in digs in northwestern Iraq dating from 7000 to 6000 BC, and yet another variety discovered in the ancient Egyptian tombs ( I think I’ve yet to research a plant that hasn’t been found in the Egyptian tombs!) The Bronze Age in Switzerland featured peas from 3000 BC, and in Athens in 500 BC it was common to buy hot pea soup from street vendors. Peas hit the Chinese empire by the 7th century, and the Chinese are credited with being the first to treat them as a fresh rather than dried vegetable, creating the strains now known today as the snow pea.

Peas-This Year’s Little Black Dress: In 1533, Catherine de Medici of Italy married Henry II of France, bringing Italy’s popular tiny fresh pea varieties with her. This began a wide-spread pea-craze throughout France. By 1695, it became very vogue for the fashionable ladies of the time to have a bedtime snack of peas.

Peas Helped the Peasants: In the 1700s, peas became perhaps the most important staple food for all but the rich. King George III’s enclosure act effectively denied the poor access to lagre plots of land to grow their food. Dried peas could be purchased very inexpensively, so it was common to have a kettle-full of peas on the stove at all times, throwing in whatever vegetables could be rounded up (think “pease porridge in the pot, 9 days old”).

Growing Genetics: In the mid 1800s, Austrian Scientist Gregor Mendel studied peas extensively, outlining some important genetic laws. Mendelian Genetics created the base on which modern genetics was built.

Not in Good Taste: Though the peas may taste delicious, it is rare to see them on your plate at a fancy restaurant. The kind folks looking after your manners would like to help you avoid the blunders that can occur when trying to get the buggers to stay put on your fork. While indulging in the privacy of your own home, you could always try following this little ditty collected by Edward Lear:

I Eat My Peas With Honey,
I’ve Done it All My Life;
It Makes The Peas Taste Funny,
But it Keeps Them on the Knife!

And here’s an added bonus- you can eat them with local honey from Stagecoach Orchard Apiaries in Lehighton, now available in our farm store! If you are looking for other ideas that may not taste as funny, please click here. Happy Eating!

Sources:

Pease Porridge Hot, Pease Porridge Cold, February 2003 , article from
Vegetarians in Paradise Web Magazine by Zel and Reuben Allen

Wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia

As our search continues at the farm for a viable replacement for the plastic bags we use, I decided to see what I could do to help eliminate the plastic bags our family uses off the farm as well. In some areas we were fine- we don’t buy sandwich bags or any small kind like that. I’ll admit I haven’t attempted to replace the plastic trash bags we line our kitchen trash can with yet either, but I had to start somewhere, and I started with the plastic grocery bag.

It is amazing when you start to observe how these bags sneak into nearly every household in the United States in massive numbers, especially considering they’ve only been around for 30 years. Here are some disturbing facts collected from reusablebags.com:

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.

Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.

100 Billion shopping bags a year! Yikes! What can we do about it? My own research unfortunately discovered that any kind of disposable bag option that isn’t made of plastic is nearly 10 times more expensive. Obviously most retailers aren’t willing to take that kind of step, even if it is better for the environment. There is another large-scale option however: In 2002, Ireland introduced a plastic bag tax, or PlasTax. For every plastic bag given to a consumer at a store, the customer was charged 15 cents. The goal was to raise the awareness of the consumer and to encourage them to reuse bags. The tax was hugely successful, cutting consumption of plastic bags by a staggering 90%! All the tax money (9.6 million dollars) went in to a green fund set up to benefit the environment. Another bonus for our petroleum dependent world: an estimated 18,000,000 liters (4,755,097 gallons) of oil were saved due to decreased production of bags. Now I’m no statistics expert, but according to my own basic calculations, if the U.S. were to cut plastic bag rates by 90%, we would be saving around 40 million gallons of oil! Until such a wonder-bill gets introduced, I’m afraid it’s up to us, the individual consumer, to try to make a difference. This brings me back to my own personal family quest:

After my statistical enlightenment, my next step was to assemble myself a reusable bag kit. I went around and gathered up all the canvas totes hiding in various nooks and crannies in the house. It surprised me how many I already owned- one from the library’s summer reading program, a mesh beach-type bag from my mom, 2 of our own 14 Acre Farm canvas bags, two that came with hand-me-downs. I threw in a small soft cooler/lunch kit and I was ready!

The next part is where the challenge began- I had to remember to bring them with me AND bring them into the store. I’ll admit, they lived in the car for a little while before I got this far. My first shopping trip with them was at the Giant (we’ll save the eliminating the grocery store out of our lives article for another time-baby steps!). I stuffed the 3 largest bags full to the top in the self-serve aisle. They were absurdly heavy, but I managed to get them out of the cart and into the trunk. I made a mental note about being cautious not to over-fill them next time. Since then I also learned the secret of the self-serve area from my friend Diane- put the bags in the bag area first, then have the clerk re-set the scale. It will save aggravation for all involved. Despite these minor inconveniences, it was SO EASY to deal with my groceries! No more struggling with 20+ little plastic bags, all ripping and with things falling out of them. Just 1-2-3 done! Unloading was the same. This was great!

Next grocery store visit, I went to Redner’s. I proudly displayed my own bags. The clerk didn’t seem to get it. She questioned “So you want to put ALL of your groceries in those bags? You don’t want ANY plastic bags?” I assured her that yes, was planning on using all of my own bags. The woman checking out in the aisle next to me was obviously feeling a bit defensive about her use of plastic bags. She began a litany aimed at her clerk about environmentalists and who has time and what do they want from us, etc etc. Obviously not everybody is ready for the PlasTax, but I like to think positive-maybe next time she’ll be more aware of how many bags she’s using. When I got to the car to unload my bags, I discovered that the clerk just couldn’t take no for an answer and had taken it upon herself to put the tortilla chips and yogurt in a plastic bag in one of the canvas bags. I guess some habits are hard to break.

Now that I’ve gotten the hang of the grocery stores, I’ve been trying to remember my own bag for other stores as well. This one is harder for some reason. In fact, just this week I forgot to put my bags back in the car before a big errand run, and wound up with several more plastic bags. Two steps forward, one step back.

Besides remembering them, the other major challenge is to catch the clerk before the stuff starts getting tossed in the plastic. I’ve been stuck with a few bags because I was too polite to say anything after they already started bagging. My newest trick is to place my bags first on the belt, before my purchases. Then I can explain myself while stalling them.

It is commonly said that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. I have a feeling that once this month is up, I’ll be a whiz at reusing bags. Now to tackle those trash bags and finally figure out something for the farm…