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Mosquito repellers

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Well it’s just about mosquito season here. I imagine some of you already have mosquito’s in your gardens.

I hate them! I always swell up quite a bit where they bite me. If it’s not an allergic reaction is definitely an enhanced reaction to their bites … so you can see why I don’t like being bit by them.

Now with West Nile spreading throughout North America I’ve got even more reason to not want to be bit by these pesky blood sucking critters.

Do you do anything to prevent mosquitoes from biting you, or to deter them from your yard?

Naturally rules such as not leaving standing water in a bucket or container apply here … but what else do you do to keep from getting bitten?

I’m not big on chemicals. Not on me or in my yard. We do however use citronella candles, and citronella oil in our tiki torches. That helps to some degree, but it doesn’t totally keep them at bay.

What do you do?






Fun with sprinklers – not!

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Chris and I are both experimenting with lawn watering the other night. He was wiped out because he’s covering another persons shift at work for the whole month so he’s getting up at 5 a.m. every day. I’m still not feeling well, what else is new, and that’s made me pretty much useless as far as getting anything done outside goes these days.

So … we pulled out the sprinkler system that we have. We actually haven’t been very happy with lawn sprinklers as none of the ones we’ve purchased in the past have worked very well with our not very powerful water system.

Chris hooked up one of our older small sprinklers after work and the darn thing swung around pathetically and only watered perhaps a 6 foot diameter of lawn and garden. It’s going to be thrown out or perhaps if we have a garage sale it will be one of the items that we put out for that.

So, seeing how bad that sprinkler was and after calculating that it would take about 8 hours to water the front and back Chris got in the car and went to Home depot to get us a new sprinkler.

Miracles of miracles he actually found one that works! The new one has a good range and seems to work well with our low water pressure. It still took about two and a half hours to complete the job but considering that neither of use were up to standing outside in the garden, in the heat, for a minimum of an hour and a half we’re happy.

I still prefer to water my plants by hand. Well with a hose, but you know what I meant! This was better than not watering at all!

Have you found that they don’t seem to make really good sprinklers anymore?

By Chive I think she’s got it!

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This is a photo of Chive buds and new Chive flowers that I took about two weeks ago. The chive flowers are actually beginning to wain now, but there’s still a few left.

I love growing Chives. They are one of the first plants to make an appearance each spring, often showing their green stems by the end of March. It’s not uncommon for us to be able to pick chives and use them in our cooking – salads, marinades, on top of foods – from mid April right through until the first snow fall in November or early December.

The flowers are just a lovely bonus! I love the buds before the flowers develop and bloom – they look a bit like garlic sections or tiny onion bulbs. Then the beautiful full petaled blossoms open and often stay around for two or three weeks.

Do you grow chives or other plants from the allium family? Edible or ornamental?

Check out the beautiful Hosta photo that I’ve got on Tricia’s Musings!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

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