When we first came to Spain we were delighted that there were not all the midges that prevented us from dining outside in our previous garden in Windsor, but there were the occasional mosquitoes hovering around.

We resisted the overkill of installing mosquito screens on all the windows and the use of plug in chemical vaporisers. Rather we planted lantana plants in beds against the house, having been advised on a walking holiday in Mauritius to rub lantana leaves on our skins against mosquitoes – and it worked – and caught a couple of geckoes ( lizards with suction pads on their feet that enable them to walk across ceilings) that kept village houses free of flying insects and built a pond soon inhabited by insect eating frogs and toads.

However we could not take fresh lantana leaves frogs and  geckoes in our luggage on a recent visit to the jungles of Costa Rica so we looked up the back numbers of WDDTY, and found just what we wanted - an ecological mix of essential oils that could be added to olive oil which we used already as the basis for daily body and a sun protection oils. The mix we made up was 100ml olive oil from olives we had picked, 12 drops of lemon grass oil, 8 drops of thyme oil, 8 drops of lavender oil and 8 drops of oil of peppermint. The latter two oils having been distilled previously from herbs in the garden for other purposes. It worked, providing a good body lotion as well as protection from mosquito bites. Chatting to other travellers, some had been well bitten even though they were using proprietary sprays.

© Clodagh and *** Handscombe December 2008.
Holistic and self-sufficient gardening authors living in Spain.
http://www.gardeninginspain.com/

Their books include Growing Healthy Fruit in Spain, Growing Healthy Vegetables in Spain and Your Garden in Spain.