What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

These hide during the day, but wthrlady is right. Once they lay eggs they WILL go after you with their little front legs raised up in the air ready to strike. These are all huge and fat by the time I find them too. DH likes to play with fire, so a map gas torch is his go-to for any spiders out in the open. Pretty much an instant-kill. You can usually find them out in their webs about dusk, and out all night. The hate the daylight though. Be glad you don't have them. We're planning mitigation efforts partly to protect my sanity. I hate ALL spiders (should have seen me this morning when a tarantula ran across the road), but venomous ones send me into hysterics practically.

I was on the phone with DH when we lived in Alabama, when I pulled my camelback water tank off the garage wall and a HUGE female crawled toward me down the shoulder strap. I screamed so loudly and so high pitched I triggered the autotone dialer on the phone on his end and it tried to dial a second number while we are on the phone.

She was SO fast and SO angry, until I smashed her with a boot. Yup, torched the egg sack. We found half a dozen egg sacks on various garden tools when we got to Nebraska. ::Shudder::

 

[WthrLady]

My favorite is when, in late summer or a good warm spring day, the babies all hatch and balloon all over the place. Strings by the hundreds are on every surface like cotton candy floss when they catch and babies go running. Gross when you're out mowing. Some of the strings can be 12 feet long and just undulate in the breeze.

 

[Elyrian1]

My favorite is when, in late summer or a good warm spring day, the babies all hatch and balloon all over the place. Strings by the hundreds are on every surface like cotton candy floss when they catch and babies go running. Gross when you're out mowing. Some of the strings can be 12 feet long and just undulate in the breeze.

I'm just going to cry quietly in a corner if that happens...

 

[WthrLady]

I was trying to attach a you tube video link take the space out of YOU TUBE in your browser
https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=0AH4wddIcuo

 

[vall]

Females guarding egg sacks are VERY aggressive. Stupid spiders.

I didn't know that! I assumed the female dies after laying eggs, oops. I generally spray with poison instead of squishing so maybe that saved me from getting bitten.

 

[Sally PB]

Thank goodness the spiders here are pretty benign. I guess there are brown recluses in Michigan, but I give most spiders either a wide berth or a stomp.

Got the heavy soil garden weeded. I know the grass will come back, but I whacked it all off at the soil line with a hoe. My forearms and hands are tired!

The Japanese Beetles are out now. I'm finding a few in my asparagus patch, and more on the grapevines where they usually hang out. I hunt them on my neighbor's deck on her ornamental grapevine ("Sure, go on back, no you don't need to ask!") and on the mass grapevines that grow up the power pole near the mailbox. Munchy, crunchy chickie snack!

There are 4 mature oak trees we're going to have removed. DH is competent with a chainsaw, but he wants nothing to do with 80 year old trees leaning over the house.

I asked that everything 4" and smaller be chipped up. I will have a big pile of woodchips! Chips for the run, chips for the garden. Whoo-hoo!

 

[TJAnonymous]

These hide during the day, but wthrlady is right. Once they lay eggs they WILL go after you with their little front legs raised up in the air ready to strike. These are all huge and fat by the time I find them too. DH likes to play with fire, so a map gas torch is his go-to for any spiders out in the open. Pretty much an instant-kill. You can usually find them out in their webs about dusk, and out all night. The hate the daylight though. Be glad you don't have them. We're planning mitigation efforts partly to protect my sanity. I hate ALL spiders (should have seen me this morning when a tarantula ran across the road), but venomous ones send me into hysterics practically.

We have them all over the place here too... The good news is that they rarely enter the inside of your house. The garage and surrounding areas are fair game. We keep our mud boots in the garage and I'm always paranoid there will be a spider in my boot. I ALWAYS check first....

But mostly I find them in our mailbox, buckets, spare pots, by the hose bibbs, and places like that.

 

[TJAnonymous]

My understanding of brown recluses is that they like hiding spots that we humans are extremely unlikely to encounter. Unless you're doing renovations... Then be careful.

Brown recluse spiders DO prefer to be indoors (vs black widows who prefer outdoors). My daughter has been bitten twice by brown recluse. My son was bitten once and had necrotic tissue. Very painful and traumatic experience for both kids.

When a black widow bites you there is immediate intense pain. You know it immediately. When a brown recluse bites you, you likely won't know it for hours...

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

Brown recluse spiders DO prefer to be indoors (vs black widows who prefer outdoors). My daughter has been bitten twice by brown recluse. My son was bitten once and had necrotic tissue. Very painful and traumatic experience for both kids.

When a black widow bites you there is immediate intense pain. You know it immediately. When a brown recluse bites you, you likely won't know it for hours...

We sometimes see recluses inside here. Many are in attics, sometimes I see them in the bathtub. Common wisdom is to remove bed skirts if you are likely to have them inside so they won't crawl in bed with you as easily. I think spraying mainly drives them out in the open.

 

[Acre4Me]

The good news is that they rarely enter the inside of your house

On a Hoarders show years ago, there was a single mom with 2 kids (tween/teen age). Daughter was the only one that would cook basic things (like eggs) in the kitchen. Kitchen was a bit small, but pretty typical overall. Of course, hoarded and only one burner available to cook on. Anyway, the cleaning crew came in…..and found BWs in quantity in the kitchen…bc they also like areas that have rotting material that isn’t disturbed (like a hoarder’s kitchen). So, cleaning crew ran out, exterminators came in…they were shocked that BW inside, and teen daughter was horrified she’d been cooking within inches of the area the BW were mostly located. So, let’s all be thankful we don’t have BW in our kitchens or homes!

My son was bitten once and had necrotic tissue. Very painful and traumatic experience for both kids.

Yikes! Traumatic for sure.

worked with a lady with quite a bit of scarring on her arm from a BR bite. She and husband had gotten a great deal on a house that had been vacant for over a year. She said she thought it was odd when she would see spiders occasionally just walk right across the floor, when usually they stick to darker /edge arenas. She was bitten in her sleep. They had a n exterminator come in bc the BR had a few nests in the house as it had been vacant.