Thursday, April 30, 2009

Just Thought I'd Share

Hello bloggers! I thought I'd let yall in on a little known fact, at least in my circle of friends.

I have a beautiful yard with lots of oak trees, pecan trees and a persimmon tree. Every spring and summer my trees and yard are full of caterpillars. They totally ruined my persimmons one year with their webs or nests or whatever it is they shoot out.

My neighbor doesn't have trees in their yard but caterpillars invade their yard because of my trees. Needless to say they are not happy about that.

I know some ways to keep those pesky things out of my trees but I am NOT going to use those methods. Painting the bottom half of the tree white...although it works is tacky. Same with wrapping aluminum foil around the bottom...tacky!

Another neighbor told me about a better way. He said he tried it and it worked great for him. In fact he said after he did it he literally saw the caterpillars crawl down his tree and leave!

Best of all it's free! Well, of course, I am going to try it. I did try it and have not seen another caterpillar since I did it!

OK, so here it is:
Take a clear gallon water or milk jug, cut it in half, fill it with water and set it at the base of the tree. I was told it has to touch the base of the tree. That's it! They don't know why it works and no one I asked knows why it works but it does!

Now I'm thinking I have another problem. Mosquitoes! The water will breed mosquitoes like crazy. As if we don't have enough of a mosquito problem I sure don't want to add to it! Nice little tidbit I learned online: put a couple of drops of dish washing detergent or oil in the water buckets and when the mosquito larva come to the top they suffocate!

Wow! Now I am taking care of two problems in one for free! You can't ask for more than that!

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