Got Ticks?

I have been getting a lot of emails with the same question - to please go over how to keep ticks off pets and humans. 

I know there are a lot of sprays one can buy from Deet,  various Essential oils, all designed to "fool" the ticks into not finding you or at least not liking what they find. You are right to be concerned, not just to keep ticks off, but to watch what you are spraying. 

First, you must control the area around where you live. Ticks will go for the smell of blood and especially for your breath; same for animals. They find the animals easier because they are low to the ground and to them. While you cannot keep the ticks off your property ( wild animals will bring them around), and therefore off your pets, you can make it much harder for ticks to survive and to find their prey.

 To do this, you must prevent wild animals from visiting your property. Rabbits as well as possums, mice, birds, and other pets, such as wild cats and wild dogs, homeless cats, and homeless dogs; will all bring their own ticks and fleas into the picture. So you must keep these critters out. You can do this by first making sure your fencing is in place correctly and is keeping them out. You should sprinkle coffee beans around the fence to provide a smelly barrier for them to cross. You can spray the whole place with cold brew coffee which will kill them on contact. You can alternatively spray with a strong garlic solution. Try Garlic  Barrier which is really strong and will kill ticks, fleas and wild bears (just checking to see if you are paying attention).

You will need to spray weekly if needed, but once a month should be enough.

Secondly, you can start feeding your pets a small amount of garlic in their food. If you plan on going for a walk in the woods, you can rub some garlic oil onto the pets fur and it will last for hours which will protect them from getting ticks etc. You should rub the garlic oil on yourself as well.

Here is a simple trick to keep ticks off you and your kids. 

Take a clove of garlic, cut in half and place each half in your shoes! You won't get bitten by anything for the rest of the day! You might lose some friends but if I were them, I would use the garlic also!

You can use 1/4 garlic clove for small kids. At end of day, simply take the clove out and a nice long bath will remove the odor (ok ok, it might last a while, I would ask your spouse as to whether or not they like or hate garlic and take it from there).

Garlic will kill any soft-bodied insect on contact; also mosquitos (see Mosquito Barrier). You can add it to a misting system and mist the area outside where you plan to be. This also works great on horseflies and most flies. Most folks do not mind the garlic smell and find that the ticks, fleas and other things that bite you do not like the garlic and will stay away from you (as might a few folks but that's good right?).

You can make your own garlic juice by squeezing 8 oz crushed garlic (put into pantyhose) into a 1-gallon water. You may need to spray a few times per week during tick season.

Andy Lopez

Invisible Gardener

Any questions? Email me andy@invisiblegardener.com