Off mosquito repellent. I wear pants usually when I garden and spray any exposed skin with mosquito repellent. The mosquitoes are always bad in my yard, this year worse than ever.

Karen

Girl I have to carry 2 bottles of insect repellant with me, you know those dern things still attack me with me spraying 2 types on!! They are finally starting to die down a little bit but man after the flood waters first started to recede it was HORRIBLE!!

I know lisa posted something about lemon balm, tarragon and some other herbs that you can rub on your skin to help protect you from those dern skeeters. That was another reason I really really was looking forward to the american beauty berry, ya know back in the day the indians use to use the leaves an insect repellant.

I'd rather not put it on my own skin, but my good friend who is our public health nurse advocates Off Deep Woods formula for my DH and our technician while they are working as best rated protection. She does use it on her own girls, feeling the risk of west nile virus is greater than any potentially arising from the Off (and as of yet there are no adverse effects connected to Off, no carcinogenic data in testing)

Today I mixed up a batch of essential oils,used as a mosquito repellent.It worked great!
This is what I did.
In a 4 oz spray bottle, I added 1/2 cup water,(you can use Grain Alcohal)(actually better than water, or you can mix it with an oil such as almond,or,coconut ) I didn't have any,so I used water.
The rest of the bottle I used rosemary,lemon,palmarosa
lots of eucalyptus,pine,lavender abd cinn,all organic essential oils.You can also use,cederwood,citronella,tea tree,and many other kinds.It works great, with no harmful side effects, if you spry it on a mosquito in flight, it will drop,DEAD!
Good luck my friends, this is a bad year,as we all know.Try to be as safe as you can with what you use.
cAROL

Avon's "Expedition" works great for me. I've been using it for years.

Karen

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll start trying some of them out. I tried rubbing lemon balm on me but that didn't work. I am in the process of trying to get rid of most of my lemon balm as it has become very invasive for me, to bad it did not work to keep skeeters away.

Pin a couple of dryer sheets (Bo*unce or other brand) to your clothing/hat/ whatever to keep mosquitoes at bay. Works for DH and me to keep mosquitoes away.

Barbara in Virginia zone 7