29August 17, 2011
The days and nights are beginning to get ever so slowly cooler. Dare I use the word Fall to describe the upcoming season?
The creatures are active in and around our homes. Let me tell you about a few of them that have been the source of some concern from our customers.
The mice appear to be on the move and in some cases moving into people’s homes. I would guess that this is happening in a lot of homes. As the temperatures cool during August, the mice begin to look for a home for the winter. It doesn’t take too much reasoning to figure out that our homes are a warm and dry place to spend the winter for both the mouse and us. In the past few years, many of our customers have had good luck using a product called Mouse Magic. This product is a repellent that keeps mice from coming into your home. Mouse Magic comes in packets that you place near areas where mice will try to come into your home. The mice don’t like the smell so they don’t come into the house. This product repels the mice but does not kill them. Humans and pets will find the smell pleasant so you don’t have to worry about you and the pets wanting to leave the house. Each packet of the product remains effective for at least 30 days. You will need to replace the packets each month until the cold temperatures of December pretty much assure that the mice have found a home some place other than your home.
We have had a fair number of people come into the store with problems in their lawn. One particular problem has been a brown patch in the lawn. The rest of the lawn is relatively green, yet the brown spot continues to spread. This probably is the work of the chinch bug. This insect feeds on the blades of grass. It sucks all the juices out of the blade and then moves onto the next blade of grass. There may be hundreds if not thousands of these insects feeding in one area of lawn. As they feed, the area of damage expands out in an ever-increasing brown patch in the lawn. The damage these insects do does kill the grass. In most cases, the grass is not going to re-grow from the roots. You will have to dig up these areas and re-seed this fall. There are many insect control methods you can use to get these insects under control. If you think that chinch bugs have invaded your lawn, stop by the store and we can get you the proper product to use to control these insects.
Stinkbug is another of the insects that has made it arrival in out yards. This insect is usually tan in color and has a distinctive shield shape to its body. It gets it name from the foul odor that is emitted if it is crushed. It does feed on tomatoes and also member of the squash family. Its feeding causes corky growth to appear under the skin of the tomato, making that portion of the tomato inedible. Again, there are several sprays you can use to control this insect. If you see this distinctive shield shaped insect in your vegetable garden, stop by and we can get you the proper control method.