Midges have been attacking your flowers or plants in your garden and you have been wondering how to get rid of them all. Do not panic because this article will bring full clarity or insight on how to get rid of midges in your garden.
Before further clarification, let’s be sure we are on the same page by describing what midges look like. This is because some confuse midges with crane flies and mosquitoes.
What do Midges look like?
Midges are small insects that have a pair of long narrow wings and long skinny legs. They look much like mosquitoes but they are smaller and dainty.
There are two types of midges, which are biting and non-biting. The biting midges suck blood from the host and transmit diseases. While the non-biting are harmless, which is why they are referred to as blind mosquitoes.
So, the essence of this article is to reveal how to get rid of biting midges, which is the harmful
Before going into the details of the best way to get rid of midges, let’s look at what attracts midges to your garden.
What are Midges attracted to?
The first step on how to get rid of midges in your garden is by knowing those things that attract them to your garden.
Avoiding those things may not completely eliminate midges in your garden. Rather it will reduce them to the barest minimum.
Midges are attracted to dirty environments, stagnant water, carbon dioxide from humans and animals, flower nectar, high sugar juices, dark clothing, boggy and gloomy ground.
It will interest you to know that midges can detect human and animal carbon dioxide 200 meters away.
So, having come to know what attracts midges to your garden, let’s look at how to get rid of midges naturally.
How to Get Rid of Midges in your Garden
Obviously, the devastating effect of midges in the garden or plants cannot be overemphasized. They hamper the development and growth of plants. Also, you the gardener is not free from the harmful effect of biting midges.
It will interest you to know that none of the best ways to get rid of midges found in this article will 100 percent eliminate midges from your garden.
For sure, they will reduce midges to the barest minimum, where the effect will remain hidden or unnoticed. So let’s look into each of the ways;
Avoid Stagnant Water
Stagnant water breeds midges and other unwanted insects such as mosquitoes. Once there is no pool of water, midges find it difficult to reproduce, thereby reducing their population with time in your garden.
Use of Electrocution Traps
This is a device that attracts and kills a large number of midges in a garden. It has proven to be one of the natural ways to get rid of midges. However, you need more than one in a garden to get it to work effectively. Else, during the activity of heavy adults, the trap may be clogged which may lead to malfunctioning.
Biological
If you must have a pond in your garden then there should be other living things such as frogs and fish that feed on the midges’ larvae. Feeding on the larvae helps reduce the reproduction rates of the midges in your garden.
There are other plants that keep midges away such as garlic and lemongrass, lavender, geranium (scent leave), lemon thyme, lemon balm, peppermint, and many more.
To keep midges away outside your garden you should cut the garlic bulbs into small pieces and spread them around the garden. The offensive odour of the garlic keeps midges and other unwanted insects away from the garden.
Planting one or two of the plants mentioned above in a garden serves as a great repellent to midges. Some of the plants are also medicinal with high nutritional value for you the gardener.
All the right conditions needed to plant all that is found above is found here
Insecticidal Control
This is otherwise known as the chemical treatment. It entails applying insecticide on the larvae of the midges. This is because the midges are so tiny to be seen easily. For an effective treatment, you must apply insecticide over time.
Also, you should make sure you go for insecticide with a high formulation that yields effective results in keeping midges away from your garden.
Lightening Modification
Research has shown that midges and other night-flying insects are less attracted to LED lights. Therefore, to keep midges away from your garden, you need to use LED light instead of high-intensity light.
How to get rid of Midges in your Garden – Conclusion
It is obvious that there is no established way of getting rid of midges in your garden totally. But you can reduce their population following the established ways listed above.
Remember that biting midges can be harmful. So, try as much as you can to avoid being biting by midges while taking care of your garden.
Both the natural and chemical ways of getting rid of midges work effectively. It only requires dedication to continuing until the harmful effect on your garden becomes insignificant.
