Love Lizards

Lizards can eliminate flying insects for you. The existence of lizards ease me a little whenever I see them at home, especially when the insects are around. I love these reptiles though I get frightened whenever they cross my path suddenly or when I accidentally have skin contact with them. I guess the reptile would probably have been more frightened than me.

To find out if the lizards population is at its optimum for repelling insects, it is interesting to know their preference for the food they eat. Typically, larger lizards prefer to eat caterpillar, grasshopper and larger insects while the smaller lizards are more likely to take those smaller flying insects. I think not many would intentionally breed various sizes of lizard in their garden but I think it can useful to determine how effectively the area would be cleared from flying insects by the size of the lizards.

During the night when I am blogging or surfing the net, I often peek through my bedroom door into the living room, to see them crawling quickly across the floor and I grow to like their discretness and agility.

Related reference

1) Lizards in Insect Control

Snails crossing my path

Do you have snails problem in your garden? Or do you simply want them out of your path as you do not want to crush them by accident? You might laugh at me here, but I seriously screamed when I stepped on a snail that rainy night. It was a gross experience for me and I can still remember the slimy, slippery feeling crawled on my feet and it also sounded like I have crushed an egg shell.

Fortunately, there are some useful pest control methods to repell them from walking across your path. Some of the common ways are:-

You can use broken egg shells, used coffee grounds, sharp sand or coarse gravel as a natural pest repeller to block off their paths that you are likely to cross the way. You can also use this to surround the plants you want to protect. In this way, the snail will avoid difficult pathways. Another effective way is to use copper foil or to use copper sulfate. For the copper foil or bands, use it to wrap around the planting beds and regularly clean the surface with vinegar. It was said that its effectiveness is because copper is toxic to most invertebrates that includes snails.

Some Gross Methods
This sounds a little gross to me but I guess in the light of helping the ecosystem to turn the food chain wheel, you can crush the snail and feed it to the fishes. I recalled one of my ex-colleagues wanted the snail shells and so subject the poor snail in the microwave so that the body will dislodge from the shell. The thought of it really grossed me up and I hope you are not considering that option.

Other Related Reference

1) Snails and Slugs

2) Pest snails

War with Ants

Do you have ants passing through your bedroom? I recently experience black ants crawling across through my bedroom window to the kitchen. You see, my bedroom is just beside my family's mini garden that is laid along the common corridor of my flat. I really fought hard with the ants as the lost ants crawl up my feet while I was surfing the net. I considered a list of ways to chase away the ants:-

1) kill them with my hands
2) use vinegar
3) use baby talcum powder
4) use insecticide
5) use the ants poison.
6) destroy the ants nest
7) use water (it prevents them from eating my favourite cake!)

I didn't like the idea of poisoning the ants as I am aware of the environmental effects for the use of pesticides. Drinking vinegar is fine but not smelling like one in a bedroom seem undesirable to me, so I discarded the idea as well. Water is useful for discouraging the ants only if the water is deep enough. Killing them with my mighty hands has been a norm during my fight with them but it didn't discourage or stop them either. I didn't manage to find the nest either as it was well hidden. The ultimate moment came when I saw them bringing the fried fish bone from the kitchen floor to my bedroom. I got hysterical that midnight and began cleaning my bedroom thoroughly. Then I furiously pepper the talcum powder on all possible entries that includes my windows and my bedroom door. I did this for a few days until the ants decided to change their route to my living room door. You can anticipate my next step was to powder the living room door steps as well, ignoring my mum's annoyance with me. The talcum powder seem to work for now, though it didn't entirely stop the ants from coming in and I wasn't really keen to destroy the ants, I am really glad that it literally stop crawling under my feet while I am working on my computer.