Buy and grow insect-resistant varieties, if available. Avoid excessive or unnecessary use of pesticides that kill beneficial insects as well as pests. Pesticides kill pests, other living creatures that eat the poisoned pests, and larger creatures that eat the creatures that have eaten the poisoned pests. Take time to learn and make use of natural repellents. Reduce the mosquito population by draining all places where stagnant water stands.
Mosquitoes can multiply in as small a spot as a discarded tin can from nearby cabbages.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, say this old remedy still works to keep pest insects at non-damaging levels. Make use of the wide variety of booklets published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's extensive series of home and garden pest control leaflets and bulletins detailing how to eradicate hundreds of specific pests. Get them at your library or contract your county's Cooperative Extension Service agent. Before you declare a war on pests in your home and garden, you may want to see if you can use or restore the balance of natural forces that can keep troublesome creatures in check. For example, every day of their lives ladybug beetles eat two and a half times their own weight in aphids, mealybugs, moth eggs, spider mites and scale insects.