How To Keep Mosquitoes Out Of Your Yard After This Week’s Rains

We are getting crazy amounts of rainfall this week and that means that pretty soon, yards will be filling up with weeds that have sucked up all that cloud juice and all the areas of standing water will be buzzing with mosquito babies just waiting to mature enough to suck all your blood whenever you stand outside for more than two minutes. So how do you prevent getting those little garden vampires in the first place, and if you get them, how do you keep from getting bitten?

First things first, it only takes four days for mosquito eggs to mature. Since it's been raining since Monday, by this weekend, you will be facing ready to suck your blood mosquitos in your yard, just in time for family Fourth of July barbeques. The thing to do is go outside every day we have rain and dump over any standing water, even if it's as little as a bottle capful. Mosquitoes don't need a lot of water to breed so make sure there is none hanging around. Check toys, barrels, and the trays of your outdoor plants. They all need to have no standing water to prevent mosquitoes from breeding.

If you want to avoid getting bitten, make sure you cover up as much skin as possible. It sounds horrible but wear long sleeves, gardening gloves, pants, and closed-toe shoes to avoid getting bitten. You can also use mosquito repellant but do a skin test on you and your kids to make sure you can stand the ingredients before you spray it all over you. If you have things like bird baths dump the water every three or four days because that will disrupt the life cycle of the mosquitos. You can also add a bit of vegetable oil to the water to create a very thin layer of oil that will prevent them from laying eggs.

If you get bitten by the little monsters, you can soothe the bite by mixing one tablespoon of baking soda with just enough water to create a paste. Put it on the mosquito bite and let it sit for 10 minutes then wash it off. You also put some ice on it to reduce the swelling, put a little toothpaste on the bite, or use calamine lotion for the throwback pink spots on your bite.