While many of us are gearing up for Friday nights at the local football stadium cheering on your home team boys and girls, our little six- and eight-legged friends are also getting things ready for fall. Mosquitos are in overdrive, trying to lay eggs and ensure they survive to torment humanity and animals next year. Spiders are trying to find warm places to snuggle into for the coming winter. Even snakes are out searching for a place to lay their weary, slithery bodies in the cold nights ahead.
So, what can you do to keep these pests, and others, to a minimum in your yard this fall?
Reduce standing water, one of the most effective step in Reducing Pest.
While the mosquito populations go through their end of summer baby-boom, it is imperative that you reduce the likelihood of standing water in your yard, starting now. This includes reducing puddles on any furniture or other objects in your yard. Any standing water, as long as it is roughly larger than the diameter of a silver-dollar, could look like a nursery to a desperate mosquito-mommy. Ensure your irrigation system is properly calibrated to eliminate over-watering, and overturn any objects with puddles as you find them, especially after an afternoon rainstorm.
Remove piles of leaves and debris quickly.
Raking – the pastime we all love to think about, but hate to actually do. Often, we rake the leaves into lovely piles, and then have fun flopping into them like a pile of scratchy pillows. The problem with leaving piles of leaves laying around your yard is these look like warm beds to snakes. And because snakes are masters of camoflauge, your inaugural fall belly flop could turn into that scene from the Indiana Jones movie…. You know the one I mean. Leave the leaf-play to the internet, and bag the leaves up as soon as you pile them, this is a huge step towards reducing pest. Any piles left for more than a few minutes could become a hazard to yourself and your family.