New product: ThermaCELL lantern

Here's a new garden product that you might be interested in. It's the ThermaCELL lantern that has been designed to keep mosquitoes and black flies away from you while gardening, entertaining or pursuing other outdoor activities like camp-outs.

The lantern uses a mosquito repellent to establish a 15 foot square zone to protect you from those hungry biting insects. The repellent is synthetic copy of the natural substance found in chrysanthemums so you don't have to worry about using harmful chemical on yourself or your clothing.

I haven't had the opportunity to test it in my garden just yet as our weather essentially went straight from winter to summer, missing those cooler spring months when mosquitoes are prevalent. That's a nice problem to have, eh?

The lanterns are attractive and simple to use. You just insert a butane cartridge in the bottom and a wafer holding the repellent on the top and you're good to go. As you can see in the photo above, there's another  style of ThermaCELL available, which performs the same function.

You can find them at specialty gardening stores, hardware stores, Ace Hardware and Home Depot. They sell for about $25.

If you'd like to learn more about this product, go to thermacell.com.