Once upon a time, there was a man in little blue booties and a backpack carrying liquid death who came to visit me at my home on a regular basis. Back in the day, I didn’t know the dangers of the poison applied by those insect extermination companies. Here in the land of massive underground ant colonies and quietly cloaked black widows, all I knew was how bad MY ant problem got every time a neighbor sprayed poison around their yard…and how scared I am of spiders.
But as they say, when you know better you do better, and it didn’t take long for me to realize If I had to wait two hours to let my kids and dogs outside after a visit from my blue-bootied poison peddler, the dangers were outweighing the benefits.
Thank goodness there are a variety of safe yet still effective answers to keeping your yard pest-free. One of the tried and true treatments that’s been around forever is Diatomaceous Earth. When mixed with water and applied to your lawn or the soil of your garden, it will soon eradicate the presence of all kinds of irritating insects including ants, fleas, ticks, snails, mites, cockroaches…the list goes on. And it’s completely non-toxic.
If you’re an “oily mama” as they say (and that’s not a knock at your personal hygiene), you will find a few different yard sprays made with essential oils aimed at repelling various insects. There are some for mosquitoes, and others for garden bugs like aphids and mites and others for fleas and ticks. Most of them are organic, too! Just remember that these are repellants and will not kill the bugs as much as make them think your yard smells really awful.
It’s pretty exciting to have all these new remedies, I mean old, I mean, errr, well, you know what I mean, available to keep our homes and our families safe from pesky pests and annoying bugs. Here’s to better health through old-school science!