I discovered a few today, too! I lifted the lid to the sandbox to let it dry out for my goddaughter and a big one came out to say hi!

Yikes! Thanks for the reminder. After winter I kinda of forget about spiders and snakes.

EEEK! Worked outside all weekend without a thought. Grew up and spent most of my life in the north and really never gave much thought to those critters. Thanks for the reminder.

I don't recall ever seeing any spiders or snakes at the Swap.
(Just another reason to make plans!)

spiders black widows.....YIKEs... I to am not use to the
spider population here, Is there something I should spray to keep bad spiders away... and what about snakes...
Should I just give up gardening?

That Black Widow is nothing.
Two years ago, I got the weirdest sensation, working in the beds around the back of the house. It just didn't feel right. I would turn on the radio and take it out with me, to try and shake that feeling....but it didn't work.
One day, I knew-I just KNEW-I was not alone..I wanted to catch the man living behind me watching us out his window!!
I knelt down in front of a window, and thought I would be able to see his reflection. I slooowly looked up and was staring right into the face of a Garden Writing Spider.
This thing was two inches from my nose. It was black and neon green and had made a web which stretched the entire inside of the window, 36"x52". The spider was about the size of a cantalope. I am sure it had eaten small cities on it's way to my house.
After the Thorizine kicked in, my husband and I went out to do the world a favor and kill the spider that ate Tokyo. (We had no idea that this spider could be our friend)
My husband took his size 13 soccer sandal and we thought that would be the end of our spider. THE THING WAS BIGGER THAN THE SHOE!!!
We did get it done, with much screaming and hollering and crying, (you wonder why the neighbor might look out his window??!!) and I didn't go in that backyard for the rest of the summer.
I know now they should be left alone, but why do I have sooo many? Last year, there were seven or eight. UGH!!

Gads, I don't think I have ever seen a spider like that. I know spiders are not "bad," but if one is that close to me ... Sorry, it would have to go, and I probably wouldn't be putting it in a 20-gallon storage container either. A regular spider I would probably let escape with a stern warning, but something that looks like it came off a Godzilla movie is a whole other ball park.

The black widow tends to stay to itself in these parts. The brown recluse on the other hand roams a bit more. Last spring while just sleeping in my own bed, I was bitten by a brown recluse. Yes I know that's what it was because I woke up when I felt it crawling on me. After the little *** bit me, I smacked it and killed it. I then took it to the doctor with me. They identified it and started me on a really strong antibiotic. It wasn't bad enough that it had bitten me, but it got me right on the chin. Needless to say I stayed home as much as possible because it looked horrible. We have our house sprayed yearly for these little critters now. I also treat my garden and yard twice a year with a product called Eliminator: Ant, Tick, and Flea Granules. It comes in 10 lb. bags at Wal-Mart. It also kills black widows and brown recluses. After seeing the spiders the other day, I spread a bag over the yard and garden. Just a little note...Did you know that the average person EATS aprx. 8 spiders in their llifetime while sleeping?..........EEEEEWWWWWWWWW....PC

Eats spiders during sleep! EWWWW TOOOOOOO much information!!!

I have come to appreciate the garden writing spider and will take great pains to avoid distrubing their webs. Good bugs are welcome at my house! However, DH and I found a huge black widow in our garage last fall -- and I was quick to kill it. Needless to say, my garage was cleaned out that weekend and thankfully, we didn't find any more. As a result, I will be more careful to wear my thick gloves while moving things and to shake out my garden shoes before putting them on.

I feed our Garden Spiders! I love grabbing crickets, candleflies and anything else I can find and pitching them in the webs. The coolest thing is watching her spin the egg sack. They are freakin' engineers!!!
I've had two Recluse bites and not looking for another! I mash those suckers as soon as I see one. I had one instance where I tried to mash one that was the size of a quarter and missed. Dang if she didn't stand up on her back legs, start running towards me and try to attack me! What attitude!!! I didn't miss the second time.
No Widow stories yet and hopefully there won't be but everything that walks, crawls and flys ends up biting me at some point. Maybe I'm putting off an insect attracting pheromone.

Jeff,

When you got bitten by the Recluse, did you see it bite you? Sometimes I get bit, but never see what bit me. What happens to a recluse bite? Like does your whole arm swell up? I knew of someone that was going to a wound care clinic for a leg injury. I asked her what brought other patients to this clinic, and she said a lot of them were bitten by a recluse... I was hoping that was something unique to FL, but guess not!

What is a recluse spider? What does it look like?

Widows really seem to like the undersides of warm, dry things. They loved my old threshold on my front door before I replaced it (which I did to keep them from wanting to come in the house.) They love the underside of the lid on the hose caddy. They also love the little pocket between the soil and the inside corner of my front raised bed, next to the house. I have killed many there. Wood and plastic seem more popular with them than stone.

I don't know if I've yet seen a Recluse - can anyone post a link to a good picture of one?

-Regina

The brown recluse is also known as the "fiddle back". The reason for that is the fiddle shape on its back. Take a close look at the pic....PC
{{gwi:1277000}}

Wow Sissy: Funny...Big Game Spider Hunters!

After learning that these things are beneficial years ago, I welcome them. Wish I had 7 or 8! I only had 1 last year, but right now have a papery brown egg sac nestled next to a downspout. I hope the babies stay in my garden, but I've read they can drift away with the wind when they emerge.

On a side note..."Argiope aurantia is utterly unique in that she is the only known spiderÂknown species on the planet whose mate dies spontaneously during intercourse." There's more sexually explicit information on this subject as to what else happens...let's just say Ms. Spider enjoys the whole experience and after all is said and done, she wraps him up for a snack later on! LOL

Claudia

Jeff, were you one of those kids that jumped off the roof just to see if you could fly?

If it makes a web, I leave it alone. Bad spiders don't make webs, right? If I am wrong, please correct me! I never saw a black widow until we moved here. Doug points them out to me. They like to hang out in the rock pile we have out back and under our siding. Never seen a brown recluse in person. Don't want to either :). I have heard that a bite from them makes you wish you were dead.

I love those writing spiders, they are cool.

Rebecca

spiders are great... snakes too. the more the merrier. don't really want any in my bed but otherwise nice.

ticks... ticks are something that i have a hard time understanding... and one of the few things I don't feel shame when killing.

Ok, here we go. I never saw the Recluse(s) that bit me. The doctor is the one that told me what it was that had tagged me. The tell tale sign seems to be that it starts out looking like a mosquito bite then the poison starts working. It eats the skin cells from the inside out making a hole. The longer you go without treatment the larger the hole expands. Next you start to get those lovely red streaks working their way up towards your heart and brain along with some narley puss in the wound. Nothing really swelled up except the bite itself. They got about as big a marble until the antibiotic started working its magic. You do run a fairly high fever and start thinking a little weird too. I wouldn't go to bed because I thought that if I did then I would die in my sleep. No hallucinations, just paranoia.

Becky the list of insane stuff I tried as a kid, teenager and young adult is far too long to post. An MIT dissertation would be shorter. I've jumped off of several roofs, too many to count. I don't ever remember having the illusion that I could fly though. No broken bones either but the myriad of other injuries are taking their toll on this old body now! I'm paying for all of it on a daily basis. Our basketball league has been over for three weeks now and my knees are still in pain. A 45 year-old playing in a league of 20-somethings is not conducive to healthy joints.

On the subject of creepy critters... will ticks and fleas be a problem for my dog, living in TN? Living here in FL the past 2 years, our dog has had a total of 4 ticks and no fleas.

I found living in Miami in the mid 70's to early 80's, it was a constant battle with fleas. Ticks were a problem, only when my brother would take our family dog to the canal for a swim.

Hi ragdollblue7,
Some depends on where you live and where your dog will do his/her activities.

To give you an example of how significant it is, my mother found a tick on her three weeks ago. Technically, that is winter, so the tick season seems to be getting longer and longer.

If you're in an urban area of course it won't be as big a problem. My garden is barely 15 miles from downtown Nashville, and I get a tick almost invariably if I walk or work in the garden. It is part of life in TN.

Some years I will get hundreds of ticks on me (the babies are of course the worst), other years I'm more lucky. I usually only get bitten a couple of times a year because I'm careful, but of course a dog is not as easy to check. I'm not a big fan of chemical pollutants and don't have a pet, but I'm not sure it's possible to have a happy pet in most of TN without chemical protection. In college we had a cat, and the stuff you put on the back of their neck seemed to work.

Yes, the wild things are stirring again. There was a raging box tortoise in my lawn today.

Oh my God Spewey! Did you have a chance to get a few rounds off before it attacked? ;-)

There you go again, BOV...shootin' wildlife.

I fought off a nest of black widows on Sunday. Fun stuff.

Rebecca

I'm a member of PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals).

Rebecca, Doug hasn't sent me a reply email! Can you light a fire under him for me? ;-)

When did you send it? I don't think we got it. Can you send it again? He's working 15 hour days right now and is pretty much toast most of the time.

Rebecca

For the person who asked about fleas and ticks - they are really bad in Tennessee. I found some ticks on my dog a month ago. You will definitely need a preventive.
Are the Garden Writing Spiders the big ones who make the web with the zig-zag stitch in it? I generally hate spiders but these are interesting and we had lots of them last summer. To be really useful, they would need to eat snakes!
Re the brown recluse. There is a great web site that has everything you ever wanted to know about brown recluse spiders. I believe it is connected with the University of Oklahoma. Do a google search. The site says that sticky traps are a good way to get rid of the spiders in the house. I tried that last year and did catch a few - and a labrador retriever, too.
This is a creepy thread that is going to make me jumpy when I go out to play in the dirt today.

I haven't noticed a tick-fest in East TN at all. My own neighborhood appears tick-free (very near downtown Knoxville.) Now out at our lake lot two years ago I let the dog run free, and she came home with several ticks that became big like balloons (well, the size of a gumball, at least) and were really gross to remove. But that was in Union County, a very rural area. Back in 1997 I hiked the Appalachian Trail from Amicalola Falls in GA all the way to Clingman's Dome in TN, and did not pick up a single tick, though I was outside continually for 17 days. As for fleas, the residential areas here have a mild level of fleas if you use Advantage. I know there are other meds you can try, but here's a tip: order the "100-lb. dog" plain Advantage flea meds from your vet, and if you have multiple cats, open one tube into an airtight container (an old liquid medicine bottle works well) and give cats under 9 lbs. .4 CC Advantage, and cats 9 lbs. and over, .8 CC. At least in Advantage, it is the exact same medication for dogs and cats, and the tubes cost the SAME despite the big dog size containing SO much more medication than the small cat size. What a racket!

-Regina

Something else you should be careful of is garden rakes. I'm sure everybody has seen cartoons where the character steps on a rake and it smacks them in the face. Well, it can easily happen and it hurts really bad.

Ok guys it has happened... I saw a garder or garden snake in my garden this evening when I went out to see what was popping up today.. It was just laying on top of the mulch that I just put down... Now my question is how can I garden and play in the dirt... and live with the snakes too.. I am normally afraid of snakes but it was just sitting there... any ideas how to garden play in the dirt and not get slimmed or spewed or worst bitten by something unfriendly and unwanted

Garter snakes are something I know quite a lot about. They are great snakes to have around! Not only do they eat garden pests (as well as house pests like mice!) but they are easily "tamed" and can even be taught to come out of their nook for a human offering a tasty worm. My father and I used to do this with the garter snakes in our backyard when I was a child. Calm handling of the snake (letting it "Hide" inside your cupped hands) will get it used to your touch. A short while later, you can begin to let it investigate you. A short while after that, it will be completely comfortable with you. I place it in a 5-gallon bucket and get it used to my being nearby and looking into the bucket. Your snake will need to be in the shade if it is hot out, and should be set free to go back into his favorite nook by dusk or he may become cold. After a few times in the bucket, try placing a few worms in the bucket with him. If he is comfortable, he will eat them eagerly. Once the snake has become used to being fed, try dangling a worm in front of his burrow. He may pop out to grab the worm! Ours used to stay extended out of their burrow, waiting for the next worm. They also used to welcome our help in shedding their skins. We'd give them sharp rocks so they could get their noses started while in the bucket, then we'd pick them up, hold the edge of the shedded nose skin, and let the snake work his way back down into the bucket. I'd be left with a perfect skin.

Please don't see your garter snakes as something to be feared. All the children in our family have been raised to appreciate these little animals and look forward to finding them when they visit their grandmother's house.

Weighing in on the subject of Spiders 'n Snakes (what was that song? Wasn't it Jim Stafford? Am I dating myself?). I steer clear of Widows and Recluses -- my husband got tagged by a Widow two years ago working on a big brush pile. They like dark places; I often find them between gallon pots that are close together in shady spots in the nursery. No fun. My DH informs that the bite of a Widow hurts "like a sumbitch". He ended up going to the spiderbite clinic at Vanderbilt; the fact that they have one tells you how common the problem is.

That pic of a recluse is a little misleading, as it makes the body of the bugger seem bigger than it actually is. A recluse is 90% long skinny legs, a tannish brown color all over with a thinnish body. That violin marking is visible only when you get close to it, like I did last fall when I mercifully happened to glance over at the purlin in the greenhouse about 6" from my right hand and looked a Recluse right in his/her 8 eyes. I most commonly see recluses in out-of-way places like high corners, where they make messy little webs. They're much more common than folks realize.

Other spiders are fine with me, though, and I particularly enjoy wolf spiders, which seem to have a Groucho Marxian personality.

In my world snakes are welcome. I am not cursed with that fear that so many have of them, thank heaven. Brown snakes and black rat snakes are what I usually see at my place, and I'm happy to have them. The browns eat slugs, and the other eats rodents. Fine with me.

However, I'm with Joseph on ticks. They're just gross and unnecessary, IMO. And they are EVERYWHERE, at least in my part of the state. Plus they carry diseases -- in fact, the lady who originally owned my current abode died of Rocky Mt. Spotted Fever she got from a tick bite. I have a list of concerns to bring up with Management if I get the chance when I move off this mortal coil. Ticks are high up on the list, along with tooth decay. :)

Marty

ticks are bad--they're carrying more diseases these days so wear your repellent and take a shower after gardening. my ex and both dogs had erlichyosis (i'm sure i didn't spell that right) last year.

you want a black racer (snake), believe me, because if you have a black racer you will never have any copperheads. this is a good thing.

someone asked about spiders that build webs vs those that don't. some of the best spiders, wolf spiders, don't build webs.

in tn there are only two spiders that you should worry about: the black widow and the brown recluse. and of those two, the brown recluse is the only one that can do any real damage--the black widow is way over-rated as a poisonous insect. other spiders may bite but they won't hurt you and they are very necessary.

whatever you do, don't do a massive wipe-out of all insect life in your house and yard. you will do your plants a major disservice and yourself as well because you disrupt the balance of nature. besides, brown recluse spiders (and others) will enter a kind of comatose state far longer than the chemicals will be around and then they wake up and take off again.

jessamine

I'd try to avoid the black widows if I were you...

Black Widow Bites Central Fla. Boy In Class

POSTED: 6:40 am EDT April 12, 2005
UPDATED: 6:34 pm EDT April 12, 2005

A 12-year-old boy from Osceola County, Fla., remains in fair condition Tuesday after being bitten by a black widow spider during class, according to Local 6 News.

Erick Santana was bitten by the spider at Neptune Middle School in Osceola County, Local 6 News reported.

"I asked the doctor if I was going to die and he said, 'we don't know that yet,' Santana said after being bitten. "That's when I got scared."

Doctors at Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital received a shipment of antivenom from Miami to treat the boy.

Florida Department of Agriculture officials say the black widows have a potent neurotoxic venom.

The poison could kill a small child or elderly person or a person whose immune system is weak. It's 15 times more toxic than rattlesnake venom, but delivered in much smaller quantities.

Black widows are a shiny, jet-black color, with a red hourglass marking on the underside of the abdomen and another red spot at the tip end of the abdomen. They're about 1½ inches long with their eight legs extended.

Black widows prefer damp, dark areas low to the ground.

Unfortunately we have found some black widows in our garage. We frequently find them outside the house , but never inside.

Cheryl