In my ENTIRE gardening lifetime, I have ONLY been bitten by a few ticks! 4, I think, to be exact. TRUST ME, I have given ticks a lot of opportunities to crawl on me and latch on. I used to lay in the grass with no towel or blanket when ticks were never an issue!

Nowadays, I have taken A MUCH TOUGHER STANCE ON TICKS! FORTUNATELY, there are plenty of helpful and EASY ways to discourage ticks from hanging around!

IMPORTANT TICK INFO:

• Did you know that ticks feed exclusively on BLOOD? They need a blood meal at every stage of their lifecycle to survive once they have hatched. They will feed on the blood of mammals, reptiles, birds, and humans.
• Without a blood meal, the tick will not be able to move onto the next phase of their life cycle. With that being said, ticks are resilient creatures that can survive for long periods without feeding. Some species of ticks can survive up to 18 months without feeding on a host.
• The full life cycle of a tick can take up to four years to complete. Ticks start out as eggs, then move to the larval phase, then to the nymph stage, and then finally reach adulthood.
• Ticks are not born with any diseases, but instead pick up infectious diseases from their hosts, but it is not until the nymph or adult phase that they can spread these diseases.
• Ticks are common carriers of harmful diseases, such as Lyme disease, which causes a bacterial infection and can cause fever, muscle aches, and chills. NOT ALL TICKS CARRY DISEASE!
• Ticks don't JUMP onto their unsuspecting hosts, they CRAWL! Ticks are usually very small, and can be hard to see, so it's super easy to MISS, or not even realize they are crawling up your leg! Oftentimes, ticks will be found in tall grasses or vegetation and will hitch a ride onto their host, and then slowly crawl up to where they will attach themselves.
• Ticks can be found everywhere in the United States, even in Alaska, where many people believe it is too cold for them to survive. However, there are certain parts of the United States that are more prone to diseases carried by ticks. The Northeast is arguably the worst for Lyme disease, with the most cases found in Pennsylvania! YUCK!

TICK FACTS:

1. Ticks DON'T die off in the winter. They can live up to 2-3 years! When temperatures drop below freezing, not all ticks will survive, but the healthy ones will. That being said, ticks are inactive when temperatures drop below 35 degrees, and essentially hibernate. This means that risk of disease transmission is much lower in the winter months, in the cooler, more temperate states.

2. Ticks ACTUALLY help to maintain a healthy ecosystem. Ticks carrying diseases can pass them onto animals, like rabbits or deer, which helps to keep populations in check. This helps to “weed out” weaker and sicker individuals.

3. IT TAKES AT LEAST ONE DAY to transfer disease. Once a tick has latched on to you, you have between 24-48 hours before it is actually able to spread the bacterial pathogens that cause Lyme disease. This is why it is so important to check yourself, your clothes, and pets after walking in an area where ticks are present.

4. The Lone Star Tick has an interesting effect on a small number of people. Some people that are bitten by Lone Star Ticks have since developed an allergy to red meat; even if they had previously been avid meat-eaters. Luckily, these cases are rare!

5. Ticks have many predators! Ticks are eaten by a wide variety of animals, such as opossum, birds, frogs, squirrels, insects, and lizards. And while they are not direct predators of ticks, snakes are known to ingest many ticks when they eat tick-carrying mammals, like rodents or other small mammals.

6. Ticks are not insects, although they are often mistaken for them. Ticks are actually classified as arachnids, or relatives of spiders, scorpions, and mites. If you look closely at a tick when identifying it, it kind of resembles a spider with its four pairs of legs, and lack of antennae.

 

THE WHITE SHEET TICK TEST:

This is as simple as it gets! Take a white sheet (doesn’t matter what size) and attach it to a long pole. Then, walk around your landscape, dragging the white sheet across the ground, and see if any ticks latch onto it. This will give you a general indication of WHERE and HOW MANY ticks you actually have!

Here’s how I handle ticks in my landscape...

I use materials like rocks, stones, and bricks around/close to my house and throughout my designated “people & pet” areas! I grow specific plants like lemongrass, mint, and oregano to deter ticks ALL THROUGHOUT these specific areas. I will have these plants in pots as well, sitting around these targeted areas! I will break apart these plant leaves and actually rub them on my body. I will even TREAT specific pathways that I barricade/block from deer, with my own homemade tick sprays BEFORE & DURING an event I hold! Make it so ticks don’t want to stay! Push them back away from your family & pets.

I make specific TICK SPRAYS out of lemongrass, water, oil of oregano, essential oils, and a few alcohol tinctures if I have them! For example, ticks hate my numbing toothache tincture. You can make your own homemade tick sprays out of so many different plants, water, and essential oils, making sure you are not allergic to ANY of your chosen ingredients FIRST! Ticks don’t like certain smells, and I can tell you from experience, they hate “OIL OF OREGANO!” I’m not talking about oregano oil you cook with, or oregano essential oil. I am talking about using oil of oregano in my tick sprays—they dislike it very much!

I KNOW ticks can be scary, disgusting creatures, but no matter what you think about them, I can assure you there is a LOT you can do to keep yourself safe. Stay vigilant, and make sure you check your body after being outdoors/in your garden. 

In my Edible and Herbal Food Forest Guide, I teach you step-by-step how to use plants to YOUR advantage. Learn the recipe to my favorite Tick Repellant Spray and SO MUCH MORE! The door to your very own backyard paradise is waiting to be opened, please let me provide you with the perfect key!

Always remember:

The Future Is Worth The Patience Of The Present

-Michele

The Homemade Gardener