Summer bugs are on their way, or in some cases, may already be taking up residence in your yard and home. The top three bugs that plague us in the Spring and Summer are: mosquitoes, ants, and flies. They are the wet blankets to outdoor and indoor activities. They make us want to reach for the bug spray.

Reaching for the bug spray and hiring companies to shower our lawns with poison however, though tempting, isn’t a sustainable solution. If we use potent chemicals to kill off the bugs, we damage our air, soil and water as well as indiscriminately destroying the bug population we need to pollinate our flowers, trees, and bushes, feed the wildlife, and provide nutrient rich soil in which to grow our food. We need bugs for our very existence. Since we can’t live without them, we need to find solutions that balance our comfort and their safety, so that we can maintain the balance of nature that sustains us.

The next three Blogs will focus on sustainable solutions to our frenemies, the bugs.

Mosquitoes are a blight on the world. They make being outside in the summer a choice between spraying deet on us and our children or being chewed alive. They bread disease, killing more than 1 million people every year. What role do they play in our ecosystem anyway? Studies have even been done to see if the world would survive if they were extinct. Isn’t’ that incredible? Mosquitoes are despised so much, that scientists have actually researched the possibility of life without them.

In their research they have discovered that mosquitoes aren’t as bad as we think and play an important role in our ecosystem. Out of the 3,500 different species of mosquitoes, only 100 of them target humans. Of the 100 species that target humans, only the females bite. It would be unfair to target all of the mosquitoes for the 2-3% that bother us.

In addition, mosquitoes are food sources, pollinators (who knew?), and a force that drives the evolution of defense mechanisms in other species (like pushing the musk ox to develop skin so thick a mosquito can’t penetrate). Bats, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other insects rely on them as a source of food. There are 100 species of fish that actually feed on them to survive. Aquatic plants rely on them as a source of nutrients for their growth. Removing these bugs would have a large environmental impact.

So- how do we live with them?

Prevention and Creative Solutions

Prevention

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
Mosquitoes need water to hatch and lay their eggs. Check out your yard, and dump out any standing water in pots, or puddles. Check your spigots to make sure they aren’t leaking and creating a standing puddle. Clean your gutters so rain water can flow freely off your roof instead of pooling at the spot of dead leaves and debris.
If you can’t get rid of standing water, then sprinkle mosquito bits in and around the water and even flower beds. Mosquito bits have BTI which are naturally occurring spores that produce toxins that target mosquito larvae, black flies, and gnats. Mosquito bits aren’t harmful to birds, fish, pollinators, insects, pets, horses, or livestock.
Once you have your preventative measures in place, develop a creative solution to the mosquitoes that are already harassing you.