Roses and Poison Ivy

The garden is in! The roses are blooming , giving us a nice flower vase full for the table, regularly. The new growth is showing from the vegetable seeds and the bedding plants are looking good. The problem with something eating on the cabbage plants and collards made me break down and agree to spraying some with an insecticide. After last year of trying to eradicate the insects that basically consumed the tomatoes after trying every organic topical treatment I could find, made me more open to using chemical sprays this year.

I've found keeping up on the weeds early helps too. Bugs don't seem to be bothering the lettace, tomatoes or herbs yet. the beans have a few tiny nips in them so we'll watch them closely.

The neighbor brought his tractor over and opened up a larger area for our garden this year so we should have a nice selection for saving plenty of corn, beans and hopefully tomatoes. Nice of our neighbor. We offered a nice service in exchange.

So far the deer have kept to the area way across the adjoining corn field. When that commercial field come in it should keep the deer happy so they leave our garden alone.

After an uncomfortable dose of poison ivy a month back, from pulling and weeding around the house and trees, I've looked up , for visually identifying the species of poison ivy, oak and possibly sumac we have. I've sprayed a few areas and hopefully can reduce the growth here and there. It seems to be abundant in these parts around trees and in any heavy growth of shrubs. I've learned the oils are what to watch out for. It can get on gloves, skin and even in lungs if burnt, and the dead plants can still have oil that will cause a reaction for a few years. It's recommended to wipe the contact area off with alcohol before washing with soap and water, since soap and water can spread the oil more. So, something to be careful of. Here's a link to identifying the plants and viewing some horrendous cases of the rash. Thankfully we never have been effected to even close to this degree. http://www.poison-ivy.org/