46April 15, 2015

I took the dog out for a walk on Sunday morning. When I got home, I noticed two ticks on the dog. The dog is a husky so it takes some time for the ticks to get down through the fur making it easier to remove the ticks from the strands of fur. The ticks were dog ticks, but it made me think about deer ticks and how they are probably active too. As you may know, a certain species of ticks carries Lyme disease. Unfortunately, Lyme disease is becoming way to common on our pets and people. There is an easy way to treat your yard to help to control the tick that carries Lyme disease.

Damminix is a product you can place in your yard to help to control the ticks. Damminix is commonly called tick tubes. The tubes look like toilet paper rolls. Inside the rolls are balls of cotton. The cotton is coated with an insecticide called permethrin. You place the tubes in your yard in places where the mice can find the tubes. The mice are hosts that the ticks will feed on. As the mice run around your yard, the mice find the cotton balls in the tick tubes. The mice take the cotton balls to use as nesting material. The permethrin on the cotton balls gets on the fur of the mouse. The insecticide doesn’t hurt the mouse, but as the mouse runs around your yard the ticks get onto the fur of the mouse. The insecticide kills the ticks and this whole process kills large numbers of ticks that carry Lyme disease. The tubes are put out in mid April for best results but can be put out into the month of May. A second application is usually made in July or August. The tubes are placed in your yard in areas frequented by the mice. You would put the tubes near woodpiles, tall grass, shrubs, stonewalls etc. The tubes should be placed no more than 30 feet apart. The tubes come in packages that treat 5,500 sq. ft and 22, 000 sq. ft. Larger size packages are also available. Now is the time to get these tick tubes out into the yard. The mice are active and so are the ticks. We carry the tick tubes in our store.

Many of you are finally able to see your lawns. Now would be a good time to get lime onto your lawn. The snow will have leached a lot of acidity into your lawn as well as your perennial beds and your vegetable garden. If your soil is too acidic, it makes it harder for your plants to take nutrients out of the soil. By applying lime, your lawn and other plants will have an easier time of recovering from our severe winter.

Well, that’s all for this week. I’ll talk to you again next week.