The Great Mosquito Hack of the Summer of ’22

September 6, 2022September 12, 2022 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 22 Comments

Mosquitoes. Love. ME.

This post is for you if:

mosquitoes love you, too
you hate having to use Mosquito Joe to manage these pests because you suspect there is collateral damage to beneficial insects, but you hate mosquitoes more
you hate to wear bug spray and socks, a long-sleeve shirt, and pants in the middle of summer whenever you weed your garden
you worry about diseases spread by mosquitoes

I am very thankful for the day my delightful naturalist friend, Joanna Brichetto, posted a story on her blog, Sidewalk Nature, called The Mosquito Bucket of Doom. It is about a bee-friendly, vegetable garden-friendly, pet-friendly way to eliminate mosquitos in your yard.

I’m here to tell you Joanna’s mosquito control system really WORKS. I’m such a believer; I show everyone who visits my yard my buckets. And, now I’m showing YOU!

How to Make a Mosquito Bucket

Ingredients:
a 5-gallon bucket, a planter, or any container with a wide top
a few handfuls of grass clippings (leaves work but take longer to decompose)
water
a package of Mosquito Dunks® (a larvicide)

Instructions:
Add 3-4 handfuls of grass or other yard clippings to a container of your choice.
.

Half-fill the container with water. As the organic matter decomposes, it produces carbon dioxide, which attracts female mosquitoes. Add a Dunk® and place the bucket in a sunny location. Thirty days later, add a newDunk®. I buy packages that contain 20 Dunk®s online.

I have four buckets in my half-acre backyard. They are scattered among my vegetable garden beds, the chicken coop,

and one, prettier than the others, is located on the patio.

Testimonials
We hosted my son’s rehearsal dinner in our backyard in the middle of July with just four buckets for mosquito control and never saw a skeeter.

I volunteer at a community garden near a floodplain with many mosquitoes. I brought supplies to make two buckets and showed the residents how to set the system up. We placed the containers on opposite ends of the garden for adequate coverage. We inspected the yard for sources of standing water and removed them. Two weeks later, while working in the gardens, we happily realized the mosquitoes were GONE!.

How Does the Mosquito Bucket Work?

Mosquito Dunks® work by killing mosquito larvae, interrupting the insect’s reproduction cycle. It does not kill adult insects of any variety, just the larvae of mosquitoes using the bucket for their next generations’ production.

Joanna Brichetto is quick to point out that she learned about the buckets from famed etymologist Dr. Doug Tallamy. Here is a link to his short video explanation.

Mosquitoes need water to breed. They only need ¼-inch of standing water to successfully lay eggs. It takes a few days for the eggs to hatch into the little swimmers you see in the photo below. Joanna permitted me to use this photo because she is passionate about protecting the environment. “Yes, of course!” she replied when asked, “The more buckets, the better!”

Dr. Tallamy says the best way to control mosquitoes is to interrupt the growth cycle of their larvae. These swimmers eat a mosquito-specific toxin, B.t.i. (Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis) spore found in Dunks® that prevent them from maturing. Furthermore, Dr. Tallamy says broad spraying of insecticides kills only about 10% of adult mosquitoes and many other insects. Thus, the mosquito bucket method is more specific and effective.

If you came by my house this summer, chances are I sent you home with a Dunk® or two. Like my friend Joanna, I feel the more people who know about the mosquito buckets, the happier they will be outdoors, and the more beneficial insects will be available to do insect work, like pollinating flowers across the city.

Thank you, Joanna; you gave our family a mosquito-free summer without much fuss and chemicals.

Related Stories:
Joanna recently appeared in a Nashville Public Television Volunteer Gardener episode called Natives in Plain Sight. You can follow her on Instagram at jo_brichetto and on her blog, Sidewalk Nature.

Putting Your Garden to Bed with a Blanket of Cover Crops

How to Start Seeds in a Recycled Milk Jug

Edible Landscaping with Nashville Foodscapes

How to Build a 4 x 4 Raised Garden Bed

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Chicken Chat LIVE!

October 19, 2019October 21, 2019 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 4 Comments

Here chick, chick, chick.

A few days ago, the production crew of Nashville Public Television’s weekly program,Volunteer Gardener, came over to film an episode on urban hen-keeping. After the team finished filming the TV program, they stayed and broadcast a Facebook LIVE segment. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Facebook LIVE.

The white arrow doesn’t always work, so if it doesn’t, try this link.

Watch the live program and learn things you didn’t know to wonder about like chicken egg production (No, they don’t need a rooster), what chickens do all day, what they eat, their most unusual eyesight, and the requirements for getting a Domestic Hen Permit.

Special thanks to the ever-creative producer of Volunteer Gardener, Greta Requierme for giving me the opportunity to teach about keeping a flock of urban hens. She searches the state to come up with unique and interesting stories for the program and has made it the number one watched show on NPT. Much thanks also to the hilarious host, Julie Berbiglia, Public Education Specialist for Metro Water Services. She was delightful and put me at ease throughout the two interviews.

The end of the LIVE broadcast got a little crazy with the chicken humor, but they ~~couldn’t~~ didn’t edit it out …

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Edible Landscaping with Nashville Foodscapes

September 29, 2018October 19, 2019 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 13 Comments

When I was ten, I planted my first packet of seeds in a thin strip of dirt bordering the back of our house. I remember asking my mother what germination meant. In my twenties, my husband and I grew vegetables on the roof and in the window boxes of our first apartment as newlyweds in downtown Boston.

When we bought our first house in Nashville, my husband built me a fenced-in vegetable garden. He used white picket fencing recovered from a neighbor’s backyard. As a transplanted New Englander, I felt so … Southern Living.

For Valentine’s Day, he borrowed a truck and went to a friend’s chicken farm to get me a load of chicken poop. Later, Mary Hance, a columnist for The Tennessean, wrote a story about it for her “Ms. Cheap” column, “Sometimes even chicken manure is a gift of love.” In 2018, re-using scrap wood and hauling in chicken poop is considered PC and falls under the category of “keeping stuff out of the landfill.” Back then, it was known as plain old saving money, and another example of my husband’s mantra for our children, “Be a problem solver, not a problem identifier.”

I thought about all of this as I watched this week’s episode of Volunteer Gardener [episode 2713], an educational gardening show on Nashville Public Television. It was filmed in my backyard.

My friend, Jeremy Lekich, owner of Nashville Foodscapes was interviewed by the show’s host, Phillipe Chadwick, to talk about growing edible backyard spaces, Jeremy’s specialty. I’ve got to warn you, Jeremy’s passion for edible foodscapes is contagious! He gets booked up in April when folks get the urge to plant. Now is the time to call him to plan and build next year’s vegetable gardening space.

Here is a clip about how figs reproduce. It didn’t make the show but is a great example of how Jeremy inspires people to become curious and productive gardeners.

You will never look at the inside of a fig in the same way.

Thank you to Greta Requierme, producer of Volunteer Gardener, for bringing her crew to visit my garden and to my dear friend, Jeremy, for all the ways he inspires me to grow more food. Here is Jeremy’s mission statement from his website:

“Nashville Foodscapes connects people with their food source by growing food where people live. We achieve this by offering creative food solutions through landscaping. We create custom designs of our clients’ yards, homes, and living spaces allowing food to be grown in a way that pleases the eyes and taste buds: a fusion of aesthetics and function in a landscape.”

Yes, I adore him!

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