Stings and Things and a Question too

First the story:

So, now that it is over with, and I am still reeling from the annoyance, I thought I would share with you the literal translation of the Eddie Izzard routine that has the tag, "It's full of BEEEEEEEZZZZ!"

I got a text message while at an event I was running out of town, that was only two words long: WASP CONTROL!!!!!!!! (OK. Two words and a lot of exclamation points) Naturally, I called, and, after verifiying that the people who had been watering my garden were OK (only one or two stings and no allergic reactions), found out that my gardens in the back of the house apparently had a small cloud of wasps near them. This is not such a good thing, as I am very allergic to stings and one can send me into shock. There is a very good reason that I have my stabby stick.

So, I go home after the event (and after telling my friends a singularly redundant thing - don't go back there) and sneak into the back yard to see that they were, if anything, being somewhat conservative in their estimate of how many wasps were in the back yard. After bolting back into the house, screaming at the top of my lungs and slamming the door behind me so that any wasps that may have noticed me will slam into the door instead of my backside, with a metal image of something that might be found in a Warner Brother's cartoon, I tried to figure out what to do. My options are limited, and while my husband loves me, he does not need to risk having his skin punctured a million times by insects. Unfortunately, this definitely needs help.

Basically, for the last week, when I was at home, I was trapped inside the house, or had to sneak out the front. This was not particularly conducive to improving my sociability, but when there is a choice between my life and my back yard, the life wins every time. While being trapped, I tried to find someone that could do organic something to get rid of the pests, but unfortunately, there was no such a thing. Finally, I called Terminex, knowing that I was killing my organics, but I still say that in a fight between my life and anything else, my life wins.

I finally got someone to come out, and he went in the back yard to investigate. After seeing the bugs, he came inside (rather quickly, I thought, but that might have been me standing near the door ready to slam it in the face of the 10 foot long wasp that I could see in my mind's eye), and verified that I did indeed have what appeared to be a COUPLE of wasps nests, inside the gardens. Inside the beds. Inside.

Now, I have a theory that you should learn about your enemy, and so have a vaguely passing education in wasps. Last I checked, even the ones that dig in the ground (mud daubers), don't nest on the ground or in bales of hay. They usually prefer to have nests up high where they will not be disturbed - you know, like under the eaves of the house, or in the attic. A tree will do in a pinch, if they are not particularly intent on making the humans miserable.

Now, being the lover of organic and homegrown stuff that I am, my beds were all started with hay bales. Hay is lovely stuff, and makes for a wonderful organic bedding. I used approximately 45 bales of it in the back yard to make some seriously good production beds for my foodstuffs. It's all been natural, organic, and - well until the bloody wasps came in, so tasty it would make a gourmet chef cry with joy. One of the other nice things about hay is that it prevents most pests from getting into your garden - pests like tomato worms, slugs and... WASPS. Seriously, wasps don't like hay. That's the rule.

So, as I looked outside this weekend, I wondered why I had this nice man out there, with his giant spray hose, pinging the air with this funky powder, and actually shooting wasps out of the sky. Seriously, there was a time where I was whistling the universal "Here come the bad guys" theme from every western you have ever seen. I half wanted to put a big old ten gallon hat on the guys head and ask him to say things like "Pohd-nah", "Howdy ma'am" and "You need some killin' boy."

Twenty minutes later, there was what looked like a fine coating of ash on everything, and nary a wasp in sight.

He finished and I went out to find about 30 little crunchy corpses in the grass (note to self - do NOT go outside barefoot), some very sad vegetables, and him pointing to the beds that he had especially sprayed.

See, this spray is anything but organic. It's a nasty thing. It kills everything in the bug world, wasps, roaches, earwigs, you name it. It also kills people if they ingest it.

So, this weekend, I will have someone with a truck, that is willing to load up a bunch of bales of hay and take them somewhere else so that they can be burned or otherwise disposed of. All my lovely gardens are now poison to me unless I start over. The cukes that were turning into kudzu on my fence - gone. The tomato jungle that six little plants had become - gone. The beans that had restarted themselves over the week I was in Dallas - gone. The cabbage that was maturing into something the size of a basketball - gone. All of it.

Now that you all have read my tale of woe (and I hope you got at least an occasional chuckle out of the telling), here is the question:

What can put into the garden to make sure that this NEVER EVER EVER happens again. Ever! Never! Not in ten million years, even if my garden is the last place on earth where there is anything edible. Not even in the event of a zombie attack!

I have had it suggested that I can probably reduce the number of wasps that come into the area by using the pitcher thingies to trap and drown them. But I'm not sure if this is enough. So, I bring the question to you guys: In Houston, in summer, how to keep the wasps away? I've already resigned myself to starting over on the beds, but I really don't want to have to restart again after this round.

Oh, and if anyone has any theories of why they decided to nest inside my hay, I would love that too.


This message was edited Jun 9, 2009 9:58 PM

Hastur, before you try to eliminate all wasps within a five-mile radius of your place, what about getting the desensitization treatment for vespids? My husband was on the road to life-threatening reactions to wasps, and of course on a farm one occasionally runs into them - or vice versa. So he went to his friendly neighborhood allergist and embarked on a somewhat lengthy but effective course of treatment. He's been stung by the occasional wasp since then with nary a pink bump to show for it.

How absolutely horrible, though, that you had to do in your garden. You must have been in tears - I would have been.

Leslie

God what a tail of woe! Sounds like the insect control guys have gone for overkill, probably lacking the knowledge to do the job in the correct way, First the individual nest site/s need to be located, next treated with an insecticide injected into the nest, this is best done after sunset when all the little blighters have returned from foraging during the day.
The totally organic method is only for the brave!! Locate the nest at night drop it into a strong bag then burn it!
Suitable protection must be worn for these procedures.
Nice post and a darn good chuckle, I take it you had plenty of time to write during your entrapment!
As for your hay I would need to know the species of wasp to hazard a guess. This certainly not normal bee-havior for the common wood wasp, (family Xiphydriidae).

pajonica

Personally, I haven't found any bugs or birds behavior to be normal this year. I have only seen one hummer, one type of bee on my lavender, a handful of butterflies and a couple of wasps. I have the plants and I don't spray any chemicals on the plants so where are all my bugs. I do however seem to have plenty of slugs and possibly some earwigs eating everything.

Oh I forgot I did see some ladybugs early in the season but haven't seen any lately.

I am sorry you had to grow through all of this especially the loss of what seems to have been a very promising garden. My mom is allergic too so she is always on the lookout. The worst close call we got was when my daughter was smaller and we were visiting my mom and dad. My mom had an empty birdfeeder and wasps decided to nest in it. My daughter started to swing it back and forth. I just happened to look at the right time and saw some flying around. Needless to say I grabbed her and I ran as fast as I could. We made it inside before either one of us got stung.

This message was edited Jun 9, 2009 10:43 PM

Greenhouse Gal: I did not know that there is a way to desensitize you. Please, please d-mail me with any information you can about it, so that I can find someone in the area that will be able to help me get rid of this. There is nothing quite so frustrating as cowering in fear and running away when anything of any size comes near. And it's just stupid to be frightened when a butterfly goes by. But I am because of the allergy. And yes, there were copious amounts of tears.

Pajonica: The totally organic is for someone far braver than I. Seriously. I don't think I could convince my beloved to do that one for me! And yeah, they probably did go for overkill, but I am able to go out in the back and cry at my poor plants now, so it's worth it. I just hated losing all that nice food production.

WisdomSkr: I have a feeling that you broke the speed of sound getting the little one in. And I don't blame you. Eeep!

I think it was the fastest I ever ran in my life LOL!!

Hastur, I am so so sorry to read this! I have to say, thank you for telling your story, but honestly, what a shame! to lose all your wonderful garden like that. I do hope the mystery gets solved, as to why the wasps showed up there in the first darn place!!!!!

Oof.

Well, last night I was looking at the wreckage, and making a plan for how to properly dispose of the stuff with minimal annoyance, and was looking at the tomatos again. I saw some reds that were very red and decided to pick them and toss them so that I would not be tempted. However, when I got close, they were VERY weird. They looked like someone had sucked all the juice out of the really ripe ones, and then left an empty shell. I have never seen anything like that.

Maybe the wasps were looking for some food and found me?

I encourage wasps and love the way they wipe out aphids in my garden without any sprays needed. Though I have no sensitivity to their sting. They are my friends and I have thousands in my garden. I get stung two or three times a year and I am in the garden most of the time.

I'm not sure the wasps are doing much for the aphids--there are parasitic wasps that will take care of aphids but they're very tiny and you probably don't see them. As far as I know the big wasps don't eat aphids. Could be wrong, but I've never heard that they would.

I've seen the wasps eat caterpillars and I've watched them clean up scale insects on my aristolochia vines. I was very allergic to bees but had desensitation and now they hardly bother me at all. I don't like to get stung though, it hurts!
The paper wasps are bad to build under leaves in the garden, especially big leaf plants like broccoli and cauliflower. They sometimes build nests in the tomato plants. I just try to be alert and watch out for their nests. The ones here aren't agressive unless I disturb their nest.
If we do have to destroy a nest, we use pyrethrin sprayed at night.

They feast on meat (aphids) for the first 2 months of summer and then move to fruit etc later. They eat lots and lots of aphids.

I went for my early morning inspection of the garden this morning and was confronted with one of these. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet#Sting....... I ran!

Augh! *runs from the hornet*

That thing is HUGE! I'm already afraid of regular wasps. If I saw that I'd probably fall over from fright. *shudder*

I'm aghast at your story. However, I've been fascinated by the wasp I watch out my window while we eat. For a couple of weeks it has been carrying and stuffing grasshoppers as large as it is into a crevass to store for the future use of it's progeny. Since grasshoppers are big munchers this time of year, hooray for this wasp!