How to get rid of mosquitoes without harming your gardening.

[Anna8]

Hello everyone! My Mother in Law gardens and grows squash and melons in her garden. She saves the rain water to water her garden. My only issue is that there are stagnant water in our yard which leads to mosquitoes for the summer. What can I do to prevent mosquitoes from developing without harming her garden of squash and melons?
I have read about putting vegetable oil and olive oil in the stagnant water but would that kill her squash and melons? Feedback would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

The mosquito larvae have a little tube that they put up to the surface to breath. Oil on the surface of the water does stop them breathing, and vegetable based oils will not harm the plants, on the other hand in time it will get hard and yucky. My solution is to use a barrel with a lid and use manhole grease around the edge of the lid so the adults never get in to lay their eggs. It is a sort of heavy duty grease that they use to seal manholes and stop unpleasant smells getting out. The old boy who used to live next door to me used to add a bit of Jeyes fluid outdoor disinfectant, like you I would worry about the plants, but he was a very successful gardener who once told me he grew everything they ate except for meat, though I never noticed wheat or a cow

 

[Chuck]

Put some Mosquito Dunks or Mosquito Bits into the water. It is another form of Bt and is completely harmless to people and pets.

Mosquito Dunks® - Summit® Responsible Solutions

Mosquito Dunks® Each dunk® kills mosquito larvae for 30 days or more. A Mosquito Dunk® looks like a small, beige donut which floats on standing water. As the Dunk® slowly dissolves, it releases a bacterium which is toxic to all species of mosquito larvae. Each dunk® kills mosquito larvae for 30...

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[Anna8]

Hello everyone! My Mother in Law gardens and grows squash and melons in her garden. She saves the rain water to water her garden. My only issue is that there are stagnant water in our yard which leads to mosquitoes for the summer. What can I do to prevent mosquitoes from developing without harming her garden of squash and melons?
I have read about putting vegetable oil and olive oil in the stagnant water but would that kill her squash and melons? Feedback would be greatly appreciated!

I also failed to mention, my mother in law makes dishes out of the squashes and melons she grows. So I just want to make sure what is out in the stagnant water is not harmful to people who ingest the food. Thank you everyone for their suggestions and help!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

They are new to me, Chuck, it looks good.

 

[Chuck]

They are new to me, Chuck, it looks good.

It has been around for years here in the US. It is a form of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) named Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis or Bti. It really works. I thought it was used world wide. It is used here wherever there is standing water i.e. livestock water tanks, small ponds and lakes etc. All the Mosquito Bits are is just broken up Mosquito Dunks. It is used in smaller areas of water. All any of it does is kill mosquito larvae. And like Bt it is safe for people, pets and fish.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Looking on line it is around here.
Mostly I am shocked, mosquitoes spread some 20+ diseases, as well as malaria, and malaria alone kills around a million people each year, mostly children under five, and there is something that good that would stop it.
I have always thought it a scandal that people still suffer from leprosy when the drugs to cure it are cheap. But a million small children dying each year needlessly is an outrage.
It will come back and bite us, Covid isn't the only disease capable of crossing national frontiers, and there are already malarial mosquitoes in this country on Canvey Island.

 

[NigelJ]

I'd get rid of the stagnant water if possible, if it has to stay try a solar powered bubbler.
A drop of biodegradable detergent in the water prevents the larvae from breathing as the lower surface tension prevents the mosquito larvae from hanging below the surface with their breathing tube pushed through the meniscus.
Bacillus thuringiensis is not legally available to amateur growers in the UK. There are a couple of professionally available products.

 

[NigelJ]

A form of malaria was around in the UK until the early part of the 20th century. Places like the Fens, Romney Marsh and other wetlands were known as Marsh fever/ ague, Shaking ague and various other names.
The difficulty with malaria is that in many parts of the world the parasite is resistant to a lot of the drugs available. Hence the drive for a vaccine funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation; interestingly the Oxford team that devloped the Covid vaccine had been developing a malaria vaccines for a decade before Covid and used that technology for the Covid vaccine.
Leprosy and TB are difficult to treat as they are slow growing mycobacterial infections and treatment requires a long course of drugs and many people don't tolerate the side effects well; this results in people stopping the drugs as soon as they feel better.
Multi drug resistant TB is a spreading problem around the world including the UK.