Bob Beyfuss: Some timely tips on rain barrels, bears and ticks – The Daily Freeman

Dont be in too big a rush to get out in your gardens this month. Wet clay soil is easily compacted at this time of year and the damage may not be easily fixable.

Stay off your lawn if possible and let the grass grow to suck up some of the extra soil moisture. As wet as it is now, by May we may be experiencing drought conditions. This is a good time to install some rain barrels to collect water, using 55-gallon drums or even watering troughs designed for livestock. A 10-foot- long gutter and downspout attached to a shed or garage roof will collect lots of rainwater this spring that you may need later on. My barrels fill up completely with only a half-inch of rain, using a 10-foot-long gutter.

Of course, any standing water provides mosquito-breeding habitat so you need to take precautions. There is a product called Mosquito Dunks that releases a type of bacteria that kills mosquito larvae, (Bacillus thurigensis) but is pretty harmless to most other living things. The dunks last about 30 days in the barrels unless the water overflows and washes them out. Of course, you need to empty any container that holds water for more than a couple of days, now that these blood drinkers are active once more.

Old tires are particularly common mosquito breeding grounds, but bird baths, clogged gutters and even persistent puddles can be troublesome. Ponds with fish rarely are a problem since mosquito larvae are a favorite fish food.

Black bears have emerged from hibernation now, so make sure you either remove your winter bird feeders or bring them in at night, every night. Once a bear discovers a free snack from a bird feeder it is very likely to return. Likewise, make sure your garbage is well-secured outside. Bears can open unlocked dumpsters and will go in a shed for a free meal.

Resist the urge to apply lawn fertilizer to green up your spring lawn. If your lawn does not green up on its own, it is most likely dead. This is NOT a good time to apply fertilizers, in general, since they may be washed away and can pollute other water bodies downhill or downstream from you. Likewise, avoid applying herbicides, but be on the lookout for early emerging insect pests such as tent caterpillars in fruit trees. Early treatment is preferable to waiting until the pests are fully grown and doing damage.

Deer ticks are already becoming active, sadly, so be diligent after walking, hiking or doing any outside activity. Perform frequent tick checks of your clothes while outside and before you go to bed at night. It takes at least 24 hours of ticks feeding on you to get Lyme disease or most other tick-borne diseases. Deer ticks do not hatch carrying the Lyme disease bacteria, they acquire it from another host, usually a small mammal, like a mouse, after feeding on the hostsblood. This usually occurs when the ticks are in their initial larval stage and are almost impossible to see because they are so tiny. Spraying cotton balls with permethrin repellant and placing them in cardboard tubes, such as toilet paper or paper towel tubes, will attract mice to gather the cotton for nesting and these will kill any ticks they acquire. One reader told me that since he started doing this, he has noticed a dramatic decrease in the tick population around his property.

There is a commercially available product, called Daminex (I think thats the name) that is specifically designed for this purpose. I dont even try to control the mouse populations that inhabit my sheds and even my house while I am here in Florida, but I do use the tubes when I return. We still know very little about the ecology of tick-borne diseases or why, for that matter. Some people seem to be much more inclined to attract them. I can spend hours working outside with no ticks seen, but oftentimes a visitor walking with me seems to get two or three of them in 20 minutes.

I suppose some people are tick magnets as some people are also mosquito magnets while others are rarely attacked. Some say that eating lots of garlic will repel them as you emit the fragrance from your pores. Eating lots of garlic may also repel people, however. I had planned to write this column on ramps, also known as wild leeks, which is a garlic relative that also lingers in your body for days, but that will have to wait until next week. For me, perhaps it is my blood alcohol content that deters them!

Bob Beyfuss lives and gardens in Schoharie County. Send him an e-mail to rlb14@cornell.edu.

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Bob Beyfuss: Some timely tips on rain barrels, bears and ticks - The Daily Freeman