Just in case you haven’t caught on yet about what season my heart loves most, let me take this moment to share that my heart sings the loudest in summer. I love love LOVE everything about summer. The hot sunshine. The warm muggy mornings that scream poolside at 9am. Long runs outside. Bike rides around the lake. Popsicle stains and picnics outside. Dinner parties on the patio. Picking flowers from our garden. Growing food that we use to nourish our bodies after a long day. There isn’t much that I don’t like about summer other than the dirty feet and mosquitoes that tend to come along for the ride, but what is summer, really, without them?
You may have seen on instagram that we’ve partnered with Thermacell Patio Shield this summer to test drive a new product of theirs in hopes to keep the mosquitoes from stealing hours out of our evenings by keeping them a healthy distance away. Unlike the past couple years, the mosquitoes this year have been horrible. Absolutely vicious blood suckers that came out early and had us running inside earlier than desirable. After the long winter we had, we certainly weren’t going to let the mosquitoes have center stage. So we were much more proactive than other years using a variety of remedies and I have to say, they have worked.
After extensive research we decided to spay our yard with a natural remedy (I posted the recipe at the bottom of this post) paired with the Thermacell Patio Shield. It’s always important to do your research when it comes to using new products, especially products that are geared towards fending off certain things like pesky bugs. The Thermacell is EPA approved and uses allethrin instead of DEET, which is great, but there are still certain warnings to be aware of when using. What we have found is that a little goes a long way and that you don’t need to have it on the entire time you’re entertaining or outside. We use ours for dinner parties for example by turning it on before guests arrive. That way the area in which we are hanging out in has a shield, protecting us from bites (and west nile) so we can savor the hours all evening long. I’ll also put it on before the girls rise in the morning and while I’m working out to keep them at bay leaving me bite free, but also protecting our space for the day. There is no spray, smoke, smell or mess when using this product. And it is clean, easy to use and seamless, which is nice. There is also a notable decrease in mosquitoes pestering us, which is a win, win!
Our backyard becomes the heart of our home during the summertime. It’s an extension of our home that becomes used and lived in every single day. We spend so much time out here playing and creating memories, so it is important to us that we can use and enjoy it. We also gave our patio space a tiny facelift by building a custom bench along the back of our home and long table to host us (and our guests) that made a world of difference in the functionality of the space. We find we’re out here more often than not and I love that simple fact.
So if you’re looking for options to protect areas around your home from mosquitoes, we’ve found great success in using these two combinations.
The recipe for a natural yard spray below.
Natural Yard Spray
Prep time : 5 minutes
effectiveness should last 2-3 months
Ingredients
3 cans of stale beer
3 cups epsom salt
1 bottle mint mouthwash
spray bottle
Instructions
Combine mint mouth wash and 3 cans of stale beer in sauce pan/bowl. Mix in epsom salt. Once the salt is dissolved, put in spray bottle. Spray around the areas you spend the most time in.
Notes
Savor the summer with less bug bites!