We are seeing more ticks this year than ever before. Lots of nymphs.
Check yourself even after walking in grass. They seem to be everywhere.

"doctoroe" wrote in message
...
We are seeing more ticks this year than ever before. Lots of nymphs.
Check yourself even after walking in grass. They seem to be everywhere.

No kidding. I have been using a tick drag behind the tractor on the trails
around our property and the cloth has literally thousands of them. I worry
about Rocky Mountain Spotted fever and Lime (although I must be immune to
Lime by now)

me wrote:
"doctoroe" wrote in message
...

We are seeing more ticks this year than ever before. Lots of nymphs.
Check yourself even after walking in grass. They seem to be everywhere.


No kidding. I have been using a tick drag behind the tractor on the trails
around our property and the cloth has literally thousands of them. I worry
about Rocky Mountain Spotted fever and Lime (although I must be immune to
Lime by now)

I, too, have seen more ticks this year. I've pulled some
off my clothing and
some off my skin.

Please elaborate on "tick drag." Is this homemade or
purchased? Does it
reduce the number of ticks on your land or merely serve as
an informal census?

Daniel B. Martin

"Daniel B. Martin" wrote in message
...
me wrote:
"doctoroe" wrote in message
...

We are seeing more ticks this year than ever before. Lots of nymphs.
Check yourself even after walking in grass. They seem to be everywhere.


No kidding. I have been using a tick drag behind the tractor on the
trails around our property and the cloth has literally thousands of them.
I worry about Rocky Mountain Spotted fever and Lime (although I must be
immune to Lime by now)

I, too, have seen more ticks this year. I've pulled some off my clothing
and
some off my skin.

Please elaborate on "tick drag." Is this homemade or purchased? Does
it
reduce the number of ticks on your land or merely serve as an informal
census?

Daniel B. Martin


Hi Daniel,

To answer your question it both reduces the population (for a time) and
serves as a census.

We share horseback riding trails cut with a bushog with two of our
neighbors. The number of ticks on the horses, dogs and people this year
seems many times worse than in recent memory.

When I bushog the trails, I drag a big piece of old flannel cloth spread out
behind the bushog (about four-five feet wide with a couple of sticks that
form a crude frame to keep it spread out. I then either spray the cloth with
insecticide and use it again or on the final run I burn the cloth. It does
seem to reduce the tick population along the trails for a time. However
after it rains we get a resurgence of ticks.

I would imagine that this method could be used in the garden too although I
have not tried it. The ticks seem to stick best to flannel.

I really have not seen ticks this thick even in lawn grass before.
Anyone know if there is a lawn treatment that will get them, but won't
kill earthworms?

After finding a couple of ticks after just walking in the lawn, I have
started wearing plastic grocery bags on my shoes, just tie them on. No
more ticks. I also am careful not to brush against trees or shrubs,
however.
Untie them when I get ready to come back inside, and reuse them a
couple times. We usually take cloth bags to the grocery store now, but
I'll remember to replenish the plastic bags now and then. Handy.

On Jun 10, 9:41 pm, wrote:
On 2008-06-10, doctoroe wrote:

I really have not seen ticks this thick even in lawn grass before.
Anyone know if there is a lawn treatment that will get them, but won't
kill earthworms?

I don't think spraying with Malathion will harm the earth worms much.
It would be pretty diuted by the time water washed it to earthworm
depth and would have broken down from being exposed to air.

The pyrethrin stuff would probably be safer. And with either you have
to remember to respray because you have several generations of ticks out
there.
--
Wes Dukes (wdukes.pobox@com) Swap the . and the @ to email me please.

Probably so. Ticks are a bad deal, and I fully understand the desire
to reduce their numbers. I live on the edge of deer-and-tick heaven,
and I'm out daily in my market garden.

However, don't forget, even spraying "safe" insecticides will knock
things out of balance. Pyrethins are toxic to many beneficials,
including honeybees. as gardeners, we need honeybees and other
poolinators.
Just using honeybees as one example, the beneficials are under
enormous pressures these days, and in declining numbers. Same with
amphibians, etc. At some point, we have to research alternatives to
laying waste to the environment. These are the canaries in the coal
mine.

If we must use a "safe organic" such as Pyganic, at least consider
spray in the evening when the beneficials are less active (bees
returning to the hive, for instance). Same with, say, the common Sevin
dust, which bees mistake for pollen and return to the hive with it in
their rear-leg pollen baskets. They will feed it to the hive, and then
the beekeeper comes out to see his colony in piles, twitching on the
ground and landing board. It can wipe out a hive. It's heart-breaking
to those of us who keep hives to ensure pollination (it takes at least
11 visits to make a fully-formed cuke, for example).

One direction we - who are in the front lines having our hands in the
dirt daily - can do is to start researching personal alternatives
rather than broad-brush approaches, which can subsequently create tick
"hot spots," beyond the environmental issues. I mean personal beyond
the long-pants-tucked-into socks routine, which I can tell you IS
useful.

Here are two quick RESEARCH-BACKED alternatives a quick Google turned
up:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2007/070126.htm
beauty berry, which many of us already grow,

and
this product, developed at our own NCSU from wild tomatoes - ticks
actually preferred to stand in DEET than it:
http://www.bioud.com/
Can be sprayed on pants legs, etc.

I also have used catnip oil as a DEET alternative for mosquitoes, in
the New Jersey swamps on the Appalachian Trail. If it worked then, it
will work anywhere.
Again, this is research-based:

Catnip Repels Mosquitoes More Effectively Than DEET
Why catnip repels mosquitoes is still a mystery, says Peterson. ...
repellents was submitted last year by the Iowa State University
Research Foundation. ...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0828075659.htm

Nature has had to deal with these bests long before humans invented
agricultural chemicals.

In any case, I believe gardeners can be among those in the forefront
to lead us out of our mess. It sure ain't gonna come from Washington,
no matter who wins the election.
;-)

Happy, safe gardening!

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:00:27 -0400 in
Philip
Semanchuk wrote:
In article
,
wrote:

Here are two quick RESEARCH-BACKED alternatives a quick Google turned
up:

I also have used catnip oil as a DEET alternative for mosquitoes, in
the New Jersey swamps on the Appalachian Trail. If it worked then, it
will work anywhere.
Again, this is research-based:

Catnip Repels Mosquitoes More Effectively Than DEET
Why catnip repels mosquitoes is still a mystery, says Peterson. ...
repellents was submitted last year by the Iowa State University
Research Foundation. ...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0828075659.htm

Interesting, I'd not heard that before. I rarely use DEET and have
suffered some itchy times as a result. I'd love to try an alternative.
Here's a recipe for making your own catnip-based mosquito repellent:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nwgard...ovejoy10.shtml

Thanks

/me off to the Farmer's Market for a catnip plant

I have several growing out of the walk to my front porch (Herb garden
is next to the walk, and the catnip went to seed last year).



Those who grow catnip plants - do you get a lot of stray cats in your yard?
Wasn't sure how attractive the plant itself was vs when it's dried and put
into a cat toy :-)

Thanks! Pauline

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:24:26 -0400 in
Pauline Leveille wrote:

Those who grow catnip plants - do you get a lot of stray cats in your
yard?
Wasn't sure how attractive the plant itself was vs when it's dried and
put
into a cat toy :-)

I see no evidence of stray cats in my area, but what little bit of a
vermin problem there is is kept in check by rat snakes.
None of my three cats care that much for fresh catnip.
Maxtor and Seagate will both eat catnip plants in pots inside... but
they also do that to nearly any house plant. If given a choice between
a live catnip plant and the lawn, Maxtor will eat the lawn.


--
Chris Dukes
"Let all the babies be born. Then let us drown those we do not like."
-- G. K. Chesterton.


You named your cats after hard drive manufactures?

I have two birds name shut-up and you-heard-me

On Jun 12, 7:00 pm, Philip Semanchuk wrote:

Interesting, I'd not heard that before. I rarely use DEET and have
suffered some itchy times as a result. I'd love to try an alternative.
Here's a recipe for making your own catnip-based mosquito repellent:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nwgard...ovejoy10.shtml
/me off to the Farmer's Market for a catnip plant
Philip Semanchuk

Now it's my turn to thank you.
I've just been rubbing the leaves on my arms when the skeeters started
bugging me in the garden.
But my husband is a landscaper much bothered by them, and this will
make him one happy boy.
;-)