NENC

Hi all. We just bought this house a few months ago, and I get to have fun "decorating" the garden. I have tons of plants and bulbs waiting to be put in the ground, but I am now being held up my a HUGE amount of TICKS that have taken over my whole yard. I guess thats what happens when you live next to a farm in a very rural area.

Although I have always tried to use only natural products on all my gardens in the past, these suckers need something stronger....So, I have had to resort to having an exterminator come out. In the past week, I have taken no less then 25 ticks off of DH, about 10 off of myself, and a bunch off of my dog, even though we are using frontline on him. My poor kids' have been stuck inside the house, because my son is severely asthmatic, and has terrible allergies. Who knows what a tick bite would do to him. The good news is the chemicals he uses are safe for animals and children....

Anyhow, I have about 6 rosebushes waiting to be planted, Calla Lily bulbs, Daylillies, Columbine, Gladiolas, Hostas, Heucheras, Clematis, and my favorites-about 4 different kinds of Hellebores. I cant wait to get back out there. I am also using earthboxes for vegetables, (corn, squash, sunflowers, Lettuce, peppers and cucumbers) and the topsy turvy tomato trees for upside down tomato gardening. I can't wait to get to work out there!

I am a newbie to veges. Up until this year I only planted basil and a few upside down tomato plants. Looking forward to hopefully learning from all of the seasoned gardeners on DG, and also look forward to learning from my own mistakes....

Happy Gardening Everyone!!!
~Dawn

Welcome Dawn! The NENC is rather new - but DG has been around for a while. There are lots of lovely people who are not Newbies, who are wise and generous, and will doubtless, be able to answer most of your gardening questions.

well, I have a beautiful Sedum waiting to be planted... I will definitly try... great idea... I got 2 commom boxwoods (4.99 each!!!!) at Ocean Job lot.. I am so surprised by the amount of bushes they have... so I got 2...

I went to Lambert's in Brockton today.... I just happened to be visiting a client and saw these plants.... so I just stoped... imagine that!!!!! and I was overwhelmed.... got tons of marigolds ( red durango???) gorgeous red ones.... I love marigolds... any color.... and the price was right.... 2.49 for a 6 cell flat.... not bad... so I got some things... even collard greens.... oh I was in heaven.... thank God there is only one nursery next to my house... they are not as cheap as the nursery today....or I would live there!!!

I am on my way to San Diego - for the So CA Round up... I am going to meet some wonderful people including THE DAVE from DG.... so I will talk to you guys next tuesday... if I have a chance and get close to a computer I will post!!!!!

Have a great trip Kassia - say "hi" to everyone for me!

Michaela

Hi, Dawn (Huggle...I love that!). Welcome!! you will love it here! lots of good advice and silly fun and friendly people. how did your upside down tomato plant do? looks like a fun thing to try.

jan

Welcome Dawn, good luck w/the ticks!! And look forward to pictures of your garden when you get it planted!

Kassia, have a good trip and have lots of fun!!!

Hi, Huggle, and welcome to DG. The people here are just the nicest and most helpful you can find. When it comes to mistakes none of us are exempt so, in a sense, we're all newbies to each new plant we try.

Kassia - what an exciting week for you! First your mom arrives, then you go off to San Diego! Have fun.

Welcome Dawn! ((shiver)) re: the ticks. Good luck getting rid of them. ((((double shiver))))

Harper

Hi everyone! Welcome new members!
What's this talk about a card?? Will we get dicounts at HOME DEPOT?? LOL
I have a question, I need to wash out all my pots- can I use pine-sol or dish liquid?? Or just plain H2O?

I soak them for about 20 minutes in hot water with dishwashing liquid and bleach.

Dish soap. 9 parts water 1 part bleach. That is what I use.

ewe, ticks! My b/f told me he had a tick on his sideburn that he thought was a pimple. Til he got a better look at it. You should have seen me running around in circles rubbing my arms and legs thinking I had a tick on me! LOL
I hate ticks!

thanks, I'll get right to that.!

Hi all. I had been a member of DG a few years back, and rejoined a couple months ago. I have always loved it here. Although I am a newbie to veges, I am not a newbie to perennials, so I am hoping to be able to help with some advice as well as learning new things.

Thanks for the great welcome all, and for your understanding on how lousy this tick problem is. It is driving me absolutely crazy. I am always itchy thinking about them-they are truly gross. I know most living things on this planet serve some kind of purpose-whether they are food for someone or whatnot...I havent figured out what purpose they serve. If I had to say something positive about them, it would have to be that they dont have wings-I mean really-could you imagine??

The upside down tomatoes did great. I really love doing it that way because I avoid most bug issues, and there is no bending. It is also easy to control the watering and fertilizing when you use the topsy turvy trees.
~Dawn

(tick)--yuck! cut it out! I'll be checking for them all day! LOL!

huggle - I knew I had heard the representative from Bayer speaking about control of ticks and just reviewed their products and it's their Mosquito killer/control that also kills ticks.
Good luck with that problem.

Country singer Brad Paisley - This song is up on the country chart LMAO. I was in the GH and when this song came on I had to stop what I was doing and had to listen to it.

I'd like to see you out in the moonlight
I'd like to kiss you baby way back in the sticks
I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
And I'd like to check you for ticks.

I'd sure like to check you for ticks...

Dawn, boy, you got that one right. I'm glad ticks don't fly. Ugh. Ick. Let's not mention it to them. They might evolve and grow some.

Eeeeew. Now I feel all itchy.

Babybird, I once had one on my butt and thought was a pimple. I walked around with it all day feeling my itchy pimple, 'till finally I decided to look at it with a mirror. Eeeeeewww!!!!! I took five showers after that.

Harper

Thanks Pirl- On Tuesday, I am having the exterminator work his magic. We found ticks IN my house- in my main floor bathroom, and upstairs in 1 of the bedrooms. I feel like they are taking over my whole life. This is a nightmare. But its good to know Bayer makes a product to handle them as well. Once I get them under some kind of reasonable control I will be using the safer stuff again. But for now.......whatever chemicals he has to use, I have to go along with.

UUUGGHH-They are even writin' songs about them??LOL

Harper-I know what you mean. Your mind doesnt even register for a second that it would be anything BUT a pimple. Meanwhile, I am constantly feeling all over me, hubby and both my kids...
~Dawn

You just might want to find a safe place for your son until the smell of the exterminator's work is out of the house.

Hi Pirl. Yes, definately. He isnt spraying my sons room unless he finds anything in there when he comes in to look. Meanwhile, I figured on taking him out of the house for the whole day. If they have to spray his room, we will go to a motel down the block for the night.

Good idea.

Hi Huggle,

My son had Lyme disease last year so I know how you feel. However, Your situation seems to be really out of control. Wow. Even in the house. Is this the first year it's been this bad? Good luck with the problem. Glad to hear your positive experience with the upside-down planters. I bought three of them for this year and will do tomatoes and something else.

Victor

Hi Victor. I am so sorry to hear about your son. Did he get the antibiotics on time? Has there been any problems since then? I hope he is ok now...

We just moved into this particular house in December. However, we moved here from an area about half an hour away, and never saw 1 tick in the last place. We happen to live next door to a farm here, and it is quite rural.

I am from a highly populated area of NY originally, and had never seen a tick in my whole life until I moved here. Talk about a wake-up call. The worst part is there are 2 types of ticks here. The deer ticks that can give you lyme, and the lone star tick that can give you rocky mountain fever. We have found both on us....

We just had a fence installed, and the men who installed it have been living here all their lives. Even they said they couldnt believe the amount of ticks they were pulling off each other at the end of each day....One of them mentioned that he has never pulled this many ticks off of himself or his buddies after spending the night camping in the most dense woods out here. Another one of them was telling me when he was younger, a tick burrowed so far into his skin that he had to go to the hospital, and they had to surgically remove it.

I doubt even the exterminator will be able to completely eradicate the problem, but I still cant wait for him to get here. I really love our home, but to be perfectly honest, if I knew about this, I may not have purchased it.....It bothers me to have to use chemicals when I have always done everything organically. I cant help but wonder if I am going to need heavy duty chemicals to fight this problem every year. I figure now that I know there is a problem, I can start using the Bayer in March, and maybe avoid this altogether.
Thanks for your well wishes all. I am sorry, it seems I have hijacked this thread...Its just that this is really horrible.

Happy gardening all...
~Dawn

Hi Dawn! Welcome back to DG and welcome to the Northeast forum.
Dave

Thanks Dawn. Yes, luckily we spotted the rash and started him on antibiotics immediately. He is fine. It's a growing problem around here due to the increasing deer numbers but your situation is a few orders of magnitude worse. Where in NY are you from?? I grew up in Queens. Take care.

Victor

I'm one of those who has never seen a tick, but I totally sympathize. It's like they are keeping your family prisoner.

Dave-Thanks so much for the welcome-it is really good to be back!

Victor-I grew up in Brooklyn. Lived there for almost 30 years. I then moved to New Jersey, and now we are in PA. Never saw a tick even in the 5 years I lived in NJ-and we were not in a very populated area. I am so glad you were able to catch the problem with your son and get him on antibiotics! That must've been a terrible scare....

Yes Grampapa-that is exactly how we are feeling. Like prisoners. Either we are holed up in the house-and we arent even totally safe in here-we have found them inside as well-or-we are making a run for the car to get away from here....Looking forward to Tuesdays exterminator visit. The good n ews is, this exterminator has a very good reputation, and is very well known around here. That is why it took so long for me to get an appontment with him...

I got a tick on me once. 1990? In the shower I felt something on my backside behind my arm. I totally freaked out as I had an idea what it was but could not see it.

I screamed to my DH and he came in and got it off me. This was when lyme disease started to come north, from the southern states, working it's way up the eastern coast.

He got it off and into a jar ( with a cover - looked like a raisin) and I went direct to the doctors office. They sent me to the Vets. I am not kidding here at all. The Vets put the tick in formeldahyde (sp) and they told me to send it to the University Of New Hampshire for testing.

I sent it over night. All I had to pay was the postage. I got a phone call in 2 days saying it was not a Lyme Disease Tick - not a deer tick and I needed no treatment.

Long story - One year later to the day my cat had one. Again I go to the vets and they pulled it off and I sent it the UNH. I can remember it was kind of red and little.

2 days later a phone call. It was a deer tick. They said - The tick had not fed or just began to feed on the cat. I could put the cat on antibiotics if I wanted to, but chances was she "the cat" did not need it.

I wish I had held onto the paper work. 2 ticks one year to the date apart. Reguardless TICKS are NOT GOOD.

Then our daughter got bit by a tick with in the last year. She is on the antibiotics for a year now. She never knew she got bit. She was getting tired and had a hard time to move. Joints muscles etc. She said now not only do the deer ticks have lyme but it has moved to other ticks. That is what she told us and I can only go by what she is saying. She is an adult of 25 years old.

This message was edited May 19, 2007 11:57 AM

Geez, I must've pulled 50 ticks off of me during my lifetime.

It was my 40th B-day when I got my first tick.....I freaked!! I have only had one other incident with them. This past March I went out to finish clearing an old apple tree we had cut down last fall. I thought it was "safe" as there was still snow on the ground, I was wrong! I came in to take a phone call from DD in Florida when I felt something crawling behind my ear. I cut the phone call short when I realized it was a tick and proceeded to strip!!! I found one more on my shoulder. (it had crawled down from my neck and was under the shirt biting me!!) The apple tree is still there needing to be hauled to the burn pile. I just can't bring myself to go there!!

I spent 3 summers working at a christmas tree farm - everyday was a tick day. Sometimes you would miss one before they got all big and fat and burrowed in.

Did they ever get big enough to use as an ornament??

Schicken, You have a backside behind your arm?! I think that's an elbow.

Altough, according to common vernacular, there are a lot of people who can't tell them apart!

Dave


This message was edited May 19, 2007 6:12 PM

Good one, Dave.

Schicken-I know what you are saying. It is something you never forget. I am so sorry about your daughter. Lyme disease is nasty. It affects you every day of your life. A very close friend of mine has it, which is why I am so freaked out by this whole thiing...Aside from just being grossed out by them in general...

Sofonisba-50???Thats incredible. Sounds like you were very fortunate that you havent run into one that spent enough time on you to give you Lyme-unless they werent deer ticks....Either way, I couldnt imagine dealing with this 50 times....

Bigcityal-WOW! I didnt know they hung out alot on pines and those types of trees. What season in the year was this??

LOL Dave...You are too funny!

My only encounter with ticks (thus far) was in the Thompson Valley, BC, where the ticks carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever. My DH took our DD when she was about 7 on a walk along the river edge in late May.

When they came back, her long blond hair was such a tangle, I decided to brush and braid it. That's when I found the ticks - two in her hair, one on her pant leg. None had started to burrow. Man, did I FREAK!

We stripped her and bathed and made sure there were no more ticks -

Then I wanted to make sure those ticks were dead - and I mean DEAD!!!! So I nuked them in the microwave! LOL

oh gosh Seandor-the microwave??? LOL. We just flush them down the toilet. Although my friend who has Lyme has a very interesting way of disposing. She puts them on a piece of packing tape and folds the tape in half trapping them in the tape.....

I'm cruel. I burn them with a match to watch their legs shrivel.

Sadist. I've read that the nocturnal ticks are more unpredictable - the lunar ticks.