Re: Conundrum

I am wondering whether solarizing a dry compost pile with clear plastic to kill the wasps will be safe. Could it lead to a fire, with all that fuel? There would be plenty of heat buildup, I would expect! Lina, have you done this?

Duane, be careful! Or chicken out and call it wisdom. Lawrence's warnings about your protective gear are on the mark. As a redhead, you're probably allergic to everything. If you do this insane thing, wait for the coldest possible dawn. Make sure someone else is home.

I have yellow jackets living in a house wall behind a light fixture near my mailbox. Getting the mail one day, I got two stings an inch from my left eye. It took over two weeks to recover enough not to think about it all the time, and three weeks for a complete recovery after tiny bumps of dead skin came out. Yes, a paste of baking soda on the stings is helpful but not a cure.

 Foam sprays kill some of the yellow jackets but they are not reaching the queen, so the population builds up again. My husband used them after I was stung. The exterminator was supposed to come Thursday but failed to show up.
This is the worst summer for wasps and yellow jackets that I can remember. It is also unusual in that lots of suburban and town fruit trees that no one has sprayed are bearing big crops instead of being so wormy the fruit never develops. Every once in a while, those worms don't have a good year. Could this fruit bonanza be feeding all those wasps?
I passed an old house with a 40-foot unpruned apple tree towering over it. It was loaded with fruit -- had to be many, many bushels.

Betty Mackeywww.mackeybooks.com


     From: AldieOaks--- via gardenwriters <gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org>
 
   Have you tried covering the compost pile with clear plastic after they're 
all gone to nest for the night, weighing it down securely so they can't get 
out, and letting the combined heat from the sun and the pile itself cook 
them? Think I'd give that a try before I'd go for the poisons. 
 
If you use clear plastic instead of black plastic or a tarp it may heat 
things up more - think of it as solarizing your compost pile and their nests 
instead of the soil.
  
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