How to Make a Mosquito Bucket of Doom

I found this article about making a Mosquito Bucket of Doom

1) Fill a bucket with water and put it outside.

2) Add a handful of grass to make carbon dioxide which will attract more mosquitoes.

3) There are two options to kill the resulting larvae.

-- Dump the bucket weekly and refresh the trap with new water and grass.

-- Add a mosquito dunk, which lasts about a month.  Replace whenever it sinks or dissolves.


Also, make sure there are no other pockets of still water to attract mosquitoes elsewhere in your yard.  Every bit that you can find and remove is one less mosquito nest. 
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Help Me Identify This Insect

Hi everyone,

I've been relatively busy in my garden and have a lot of things planted up both inside and outside, and am starting to see the first shoots of various plants.

Description of problem + picture )

I would really like to know what this is, where it's come from (if possible as I suspect the bark might be the culprit), and how to get rid of them (ideally with as little harm to anything else, especially as my cat has taken to eating some of the plants we've got). Thanks for your help :)

Edit: I'm in SE England, just on the outskirts of London city.

Edit 2: They're thrips.
genuphobia: photo of an heirloom tomato (heirloom tomatoes)
[personal profile] genuphobia2010-05-28 10:53 pm
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An intro and a question

'lo there! 20something living in central NC, currently shacked up with the 'rents, who decided to build a raised bed at the far corner of the property. Having nothing to plant a third of the box with, it was decided to start a garden with tomatoes that taste like proper tomatoes should.

I've got a Red Brandywine, a Cherokee Purple, a Sungold and a Gold Medal growing alongside several lavender and a few sad-looking dills that just went in this afternoon.

This is what I found on the Gold Medal yesterday: )

That leaf stalk got the snip when I found it.

Today, two leaf branches on the same plant that had been fine yesterday turned up with spots when I examined the plant this morning. I clipped them both off and gave everything but the dill a thorough spray of Daconil, but I still haven't figured out what it is. I'm hoping it's not Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus. The leaves didn't wilt, and I haven't seen any thrips, but I know that's not the only way TSWV spreads, so I'm not ruling it out as a possibility. Augh.

If anyone here could help me out, that'd be great!