The Garlic Files

Slap. Slap slap. “Crap.” Scritch. Scritch scritch scritch. Ah, the sweet sounds of summer. I am a mosquito magnet. I am the mosquito mall – one stop shopping for all your stinging needs. Want to go bite-free in the summer? Stand near me. And when I get bitten, it’s misery. The bites swell up like goiters and by the end of summer, I have to cover my arms and legs or withstand stares and comments from crowds of gawkers saying, “What happened to you?”

When my husband Jim and I first saw our house, I fell in love with the backyard garden. The house we just sold had a 13’ x 3’ plot of earth in front that I had been half-heartedly gardening for the past three years, throwing rows of store-bought annuals into the ground every spring, and learning, bit by bit, the basics of gardening. I learned not to plant too early after buying tons of plants in early March that all died after a late frost. I learned how important watering is the next year, after repeatedly forgetting and burning my pretty blooms to brown crispiness.

I was determined to continue my new-found passion in a new garden, so when I saw this house’s neat brick-paved backyard surrounded by raised beds, pretty flowers blooming everywhere, I was sold. It kills me that I can’t enjoy it for all the damned mosquitoes.

I’ve tried a million methods of repelling the little fiends: citronella candles, smokers, zappers, and my usual method, coating myself in bug spray and wearing long sleeves and long pants in the dog days of summer. This leads to interrogation-by-the-IRS level sweating, so I’ve got to find something better. Every year in the garden section of Lowes, I pass by rows of bug bombs fantasies of wiping out multiple generations of stinging nasties dancing through my head, but since the chemicals are likely to kill your plants and destroy any insect or mammal within 10 miles, they’re a no-go. An organic, natural repellant is what I want.

Two summers ago, I was cruising around the internet looking for mosquito assassination ideas and I came across an article about garlic. Garlic, it seemed, was the miracle mosquito repellent of my dreams. It worked when grown directly in the garden, when crushed and scattered about, and even when eaten. I pictured myself scattering a basket of peeled cloves, before me so my feet never touched the ground, the heavenly (and pungent) smell of garlic surrounding me like an eye-watering shield. Since the smell of this fantasy would have me living in a hut in the woods, mosquito-free, but very very lonely, I realized I would have to grow the plants.

According to the sites I consulted, garlic is surprisingly easy to grow. Despite the advice to use organic garlic, I went into my refrigerator, grabbed a handful of cloves and sowed them everywhere. Desperation, thy scent is garlic.
As the summer wore on, I didn’t notice much of a difference. By the end of September, my legs were covered with bites and scabs and the mosquito cloud surrounding me formed the words “HA ha” in the face of my spastic efforts to crush them.

“At least,” I told Jim, “we’ll have tons of fresh garlic to harvest in the spring.”

Fast forward to spring of that year. My clematis vines were growing like crazy, and the narcissus, tiny little daffodils, were popping their cheerful heads up everywhere. Interspersed throughout, were the tips unidentified light-green stalks. I made the connection.

“Look, garlic!” I squealed to everyone who came over. “I’m going to have so much.” I envisioned giving giant bundles of cloves to friends and laying in supplies for the next year, maybe even the year after.

CONTINUED