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The tubes that take out ticks!

By WTOP Staff

Mike McGrath, wtop.com

Meet Mike at Willowsford Next Saturday, April 14

Mike will give garden talks at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. and give you a free tomato or lettuce plant to take home as you tour this new garden-centric community in Loudoun County. Locally-grown foods will also share the spotlight, as well as hayrides and other free family fun.

The Tubes That Take Out Ticks!

Frederick must be tick central! Jo, David, and Katie are just a few of the dozens of listeners in that area who emailed me for details after I discussed Tick Tubes last weekend. Now, whenever you hear me mention a product or technique, you’ll find all the details here on WTOP.com and Tick Tubes were and are no exception.

Tick tubes are one of my favorite tick-prevention devices. They’re cardboard tubes filled with cotton balls soaked in a pesticide called permethrin that’s especially deadly to ticks. You spread the tubes around outside, the field mice that are the REAL hosts of the so-called deer ticks that spread Lyme and other dreaded diseases take the cotton balls to use as bedding, and the pesticide kills all the ticks in those cozy mouse nests for months.

Used properly, these simple tubes can reduce the ticks on your property by 90 percent with no spraying and no release of any pesticide into the environment. Heck, they don’t even hurt the mice!

More Ways to Stop Ticks

Our email overfloweth with requests for tick control advice from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and D.C. So, in addition to spreading Tick Tubes around your property:

  • Keep brushy areas near your home mowed and dry; ticks wait for you in damp, shady tall grass and weeds

Tomato 411: When, how and what tomatoes to plant

By Mike McGrath
Plant your tamatas! The arrival of Mother’s Day and the forecast calling for upcoming nights to stay reliably in the 50s means that we have the opportunity for an early and safe tomato planting date! (And yes, that means you did jump the gun if yours are already in the ground, especially if your tomatoes live (or are expected to) out in the Northern burbs, where nighttime temps dropped into the frigid 30s earlier this week.) How ‘determined’ are your tomatoes? Determinate varieties — often touted with phrases like bush, patio or container — are bred to stay small and relatively upright, but they are still vines. They tend to top out at around 4 to 5 feet in height and generally produce their small-to-medium sized fruits fairly early in the season. Determinate varieties are the best choices for container growing, and only require medium-level support.
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