Mosquito and Midge control

Hi
Can anyone suggest ways of controlling or completely getting rid of mosquitoes and midges, i don't have them yet it's to cold here in sunny old Leeds but want to be prepared for when the time does come. I don't want them biting me or my kids in the garden. I will have standing water in the form of buckets and containers i use to collect rain water and grey water. I don't have any way to agitate the surface of the water so ideally i want ways of either adding something to the water or to the garden to get rid of my problem. I am toying with the idea of adding a couple of goldfish to the larger containers just for rain water to eat any bugs on the surface.

you can put neem in the water but you might want to start with something more sensible and less dilutable like garlic. Anything larger than a fish tank should have fish in there, my ducks have done nothing but promote mosquito growth in water.

I read that guppies will eat mosquito larvae, also tilapia but they are probably too big for buckets. I've found having dragonflies around the property helps too. I've heard planting catnip helps, but I have enough trouble keeping the neighbor's cat out of my yard.

You need to deal with that water in the containers! That is ideal mosquito breeding habitat. Use it, cover it, or consolidate it into something big enough to keep fish in. If you can cover the containers you can uncover one at a time and when you see larvae, water out that container....in that way you "bait" the breeders and drain them of eggs, controlling their numbers.

For collecting rainwater for irrigation and processing greywater make a pond, stock it with plants, fish, frogs
with edge plants as dragonfly habitat, and put up some carnivorous bird houses, here's a good one for multiple species
http://www.50birds.com/MPSideMount.htm

If you need to get drinking water out of it, then use a reverse osmosis system with sediment filter.
Even if you have roof collected rain-water for drinking still have to filter out bird-poop and such.

If you have a lot of night-insects you'd like to get rid of, get bats.
a single bat eats 1000+ mosquitoes/moths per night,
typically a single bat house holds hundreds of bats.
Also unlike dragonflies, bats are active at night,
same time as mosquitoes are.