Run For Your Lives There's A Monster In The Yard

        In the garden flowers are blooming

                              Red

                             White

                          and Blue



                         Peas are Popping

            Squash & Cucumber are vining

  But amid all the beauty and sustenance is a.....

                     MONSTER!!!!!

Better known as a Chigger. For something so small, you can't even see the little suckers with the naked eye, they sure can cause some intense aggravation.

I've always been told Chiggers burrow into you skin-they don't-nor do they suck blood. Chiggers pierce the skin and inject saliva which liquefies skin cells-then they suck them up for a tasty meal.

Chiggers do burrow into the soil to make it through the winter months. In the spring, after the soil warms, females lay up to 15 eggs a day. The eggs hatch into larvae-the only stage at which Chiggers can bite humans and animals. Just after hatching Chiggers climb up vegetation where they can more easily jump onto a meal passing by. In my yard-that means me!

I've also been told Chiggers like elastic and thats why their bites are often around the waist area or around the tops of your socks. Not true either-they actually just like to go for the most tender places on your body.

The treatment for Chigger bites runs the gamut from hydro-cortisone creams to baby oil. For me the only thing that seems to help-time.

So have you been bit by a Chigger yet this summer? If so what treatment did you use?

Tipper

p.s. To find out more about Chiggers click here.

Comments

[Christina]

Aww, man, here in eastern KS, we have those monstrocities galore! Chigarid is plentiful in our medicine cab. My husband always gets bitten by chiggers regardless of how well or how much he dresses, but me? I somehow manage to avoid them, even running around barefoot and capri-legged. However, I am the meal of choice for those darn skeeters. They avoid the hubby like the plague!

[Cowboys, Kids, and Sunsets]

Hello, thanks for stoppin by my work/playspace!
(Shudder) My husband wants to move to Texas! The doctor I work for filled me in on the "chiggers" eeee! and snakes EEEEE! I am afraid!! I love to walk barefoot! I hear that is a no go there! Now I'm off to "check" you out! he! he! While my photos I just took down load on my computer!

[christina]

I remember sitting in the grass at one of my brothers football games and getting chiggers up and down my legs. The only treatment my parents did was to put clear nail polish on them to kill them. I was always told too that they burrow in your skin. It funny to learn that thats not true!

[Paula]

Your garden looks gorgeous!

No chiggers here in the west. Please don't send any ~ LOL!

[Em]

Hey Tipper - what are your peas growing on? They look great! Mine have gotten all yucky on the bottom half... I think there's a mite or something sucking the juices out of the leaves.

[Joan Cannon]

I grew up in Manhattan and lived most of my life in CT, but my father was a fly fisherman, and many's the chigger bite I collected after lounging in the grass while he and my mother cast into streams. My mother's solution will date me, but she used to cajole the druggist into giving her a little can of ether. Poured onto a cotton ball and applied to the bite, it did the trick. But I've tried the nail polish route too. Thus far, in the part of Appalachia where we live, spiders are our problems. The bites itch for weeks and the spots stay even longer.

[Egghead]

I have never seen nor been bitten by a chigger but have heard many a tale by my granddad. I love the flowers...beautiful.

[Dina in Jerusalem]

Chiggers are bad news! My first bites came when I worked in Arkansas as a Livestock volunteer at Heifer Ranch (see www.heifer.org for the good work they do to ease world hunger). Every summer I was in torment from the itching and oozing. A vet there told me that in Africa they use Tiger Balm to soothe the pain of chiggers. But I found plain old TOOTHPASTE to be fast in drying the bites fast.
When I came home to Israel two years ago my first summer brought dozens and dozens of bites, I think chiggers. I seem to attract bugs and to be allergic to their poison. A doctor prescribed the homeopathic remedy APIS, which is actually bee venom in the form of tiny pills. If you take several weeks of apis BEFORE the summer, it can really help to protect you from getting bites or from over-reacting to them.
Dabbing vinegar on a bite or sting immediately neutralizes the poison. Then an antiseptic creme like SAVLON (which might only be found in Australia or England).
Whenever going hiking or even to the city I carry cotton and a little container of vinegar (and an antihistamine pill, in case of wasp sting).
I guess Americans have Benadryl extra-strength Itch Relief Stick.
A few drops of any ESSENTIAL OIL e.g. lemon grass oil, on you, clothes, or the bed is a great repellent.
Hope this helps. Good luck to you, Tipper and friends!

[Renna]

No chigger bites for me yet this summer, but I have memories of them, for sure. The worst cases of chigger bites I ever got was when we'd go blackberry picking. I learned to cover as much of my body as possible when going picking, but in our heat, that wasn't a whole more preferable than the chigger bites!

We'd go home, strip our clothes, then take a bath with a little bleach added to the water.

[Janera]

My daddy used to say that chiggers would jump over him to get to Mama. Or, was it the other way around? Anyway, they definitely know what (whom) they like best!

Here in the desert where I live now, we don't have many chiggers -- I think it's too dry for them here. But where Mama lives, oh my!

When we were kids, we used to put clear fingernail polish where they had bitten. It's supposed to suffocate the little critters, and if you do it before you scratch, supposedly it will never itch.

Can't remember how well it works, but it's worth a try. The trick is not to scratch while you're looking for the nail polish.

[Jennifer in OR]

Well, the garden is gorgeous! I adore hydrangeas. The chiggers - just once. On a hike in the Smokey Mountains. I felt it behind my ear just in time and pulled it off before the damage was done. So sorry you have to deal with those - I've heard stories from my mom. She & my dad lived in Atlanta when they were first married, and she says that around the woods of Georgia they were terrible.

[Miss Cindy]

I grew up in Texas, hot, hot, hot, and lots of chiggers. My mother ALWAYS put me in a bath with salt as soon as I came in. This killed the chiggers, sometimes before they started itching.
It worked!

[renaedujour]

Ugghhh. Thank goodness there aren't a lot of chiggers in the Northwest. I was bitten by a tick once and that was thoroughly unpleasant.
I have pea envy. :)

[Carletta]

The blooms are beautiful.

Chiggers - not yet thank goodness and I'm like you - Time. I saw a comment about Vicks that I'm going to keep in mind should I need a remedy!

[Pam]

Hey Tipper. I do not miss chiggers. When we lived in North Georgia the chiggers were just awfully. One thing that does help is Vick's salve. It seems to draw the chigger out or kill it one. But mainly helps with that awful itching.My husband said his grandma used to tied rags soaked in turpentine around their ankles before they set out to pick blackberries to keep the chiggers off.
It is amazing how many people down in middle Georgia haven't even heard of chiggers.

[The Texican]

I have hosted entire families of chiggers. They can make you hurt yourself trying to keep up with the itch that needs scratching. :)

[Mary]

I live in southern Ontario and have never had a chigger bite, thank goodness. They sound like vicious little creatures.

We have mosquitoes and black flies, which are both very plentiful this year. When I walk Meeko, the black flies are in large swarms in certain areas. They love biting the neck and back of the ears.

Your garden is certainly doing well. Strawberries and peas will soon be ready at U-pick farms here.

I hope your itching stops soon. Have a great weekend.
Blessings,
Mary

[City Mouse/Country House]

Ah, those bloody chiggers. Too cold up in the Adirondacks for 'em, but I used to get them when I was a kid in Florida. My mother used to do the nail polish thing - and when she ran out of clear she would use red. How humiliating!

[dana]

I hate chiggers. Chiggers suck. I'm looking forward to hearing some treatments!

[Leslie]

The only nail polish purchased during the summer was always clear nail polish. Purchased just for the termination of chiggers received from being outside all day long playing. Wonder if any scientific testing has taken place to see if it really worked or was just the "power of suggestion" that cured the itch? Hmmmm....

[Pam]

Never been bit by a chigger, live too far north to really have issues with them. My grandfather was telling a story about them a few weeks ago though. Made me freak out with worry and not want to ever have to deal with it! Glad I haven't had this life experience!

[Granny Sue]

Great pics, Tipper!

Chiggers love me. MY husband never gets them when we go berry picking but I think it's because he tastes bad! I on the other hand am all sweetness and light...believe that and I'll sell you a pig that lays eggs.

I use nail polish on my bites. Clear is better but I'll use whatever is on hand. I met a lady in Huntington WV who said when she was a child they put turpentine (that all-purpose country medicine) all around their ankles and wrists before they went berry-picking to keep the chiggers off. I bet it would work, but I haven't tried it yet.

[trisha too]

Well.

I just figured the whole world had chiggers. How can anyone live where there aren't any chiggers? That can't be natural!

That being said, no chiggers here yet this year-- the rain must be keeping them down. But they'll be along soon enough.

[Julie O'Neill]

Wow - we just planted our tomatoes and basil today. That's about all we can get in. It's been a cold and chilly winter and now it's suddenly an 80 degree summer day!! Would be lying if I didn't admit a bit of jealousy over your bountiful garden - chiggers and all!!

www.runninggalinsights.blogspot.com

[Em]

Gorgeous photos of your garden! I love your neat rows of plants - I wish I had a larger space for a garden! FYI - I tagged you on my blog!!