Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi everyone

what is the best way to get rid of mosquito larva from my water butt they keep blocking the rose on my watering can.

Regards

Arnie

The larva hang upside down from the surface tension (or skin) of the water leaving a breathing tube above, adding a few drops of washing up liquid will break this skin and the larva will sink and be unable to breath. That is for the future.

This year I should get a kid's fishing net (or the foot off a pair of tights)and collect what you can in there.

Cheers, Tony.

Hi Arnie,
A few drops of vegetable based cooking oil works wonders onto the water surface of the water butt giving it a bit of a stir.
Does exactly what Kleftiwallah's washing-up liqid does but W-U L is a chemical.
Do the oil treatment today and the larvae will be dead by tomorrow.
JB.

Bob Flowerdew puts a couple of goldfish in his waterbutts to eat the larvae, you can't have a lid on it though, but if you get the larvae I suppose you don't put a lid on anyway. I've always wondered if he just puts them in for the summer and returns them back to a nice pond for the winter.

I've put lids on all mine so the cat can't fall in so they can't lay their eggs in the first place.

Dear Plumpudding, don't think you really need to worry, cats don't lay eggs

Slightly ungrammatical I agree!