Saturday, August 9, 2014

Sustainable Saturday - Bug Off!

About a week ago, I got some interesting bug bites while blogging in my back yard. I believe they were mosquito bites, and we are close to getting into West Nile season.

Then there are tick bites. There is always the fear of Lyme Disease.  It is more common each year here in upstate New York. 

The bites are slowly getting better, but I didn't want a repeat performance. I am going to be wearing bug repellent for the rest of the season.

I found some herbal bug repellent in the house, left over from two years ago.  Last year the vendor was not at our local farmers market and I missed that product.  I do not like the smell of the commercial bug repellent, although I will use it.  So today, spouse and I went to the Otsiningo Park Farmers Market in Binghamton, New York to see if she had returned.

We walked past the peaches. It is hard to grow peaches in our area, but there are places to the south, in Pennsylvania, that are still within the maximum "local" radius the market permits.

Ah, those peaches.  I'm still working on yellow plums from last week but I might be buying some soon.

Kale and broccoli.

We walked past the breakfast area.
Now I can walk in my yard again!
And then, success.

"I missed you", I told the young lady from Ever After Botanicals.  (I'm happy to see she has a shop on Etsy, although buying at the farmers market is less expensive.)  Her product is expensive, but I feel it is worth it.

Like so many small business people, she started making various products because she couldn't find anything like them already on the market.

The active ingredients in this bug repellent include Citronella, catnip, lemon eucalyptus, geranium, and various essential oils.

Will this do the job of repelling ticks?  I do not know.  In all honesty, if I was going to be doing an activity which might expose me to ticks, I would reach for the commercial stuff.  But, for my backyard, and mosquitoes, this is good enough.

Nature - beautiful, but dangerous.

3 comments:

  1. Interesting. Do you have her link for Esty? I am interested in looking into this product. Great review and thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Here is the link: I also put it into the body of the post. I had meant to but it never happened. Thanks for noticing! https://www.etsy.com/shop/EverAfterBotanicals?ref=si_shop

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  2. I live for those "local" Pennsylvania peaches every summer! The closest ones come from about an hour away. So, so, so GOOD!

    At our farm market this year, I bought some Jewelweed salve to help alleviate a very mild case of poison ivy, and it worked wonders! I'll have to see whether that vendor sells a bug repellant as well. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete

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