June 20 is officially the first day of summer. One official sign that summer has arrived is when the first chunky, clumsy beetle flies aimlessly into the screen door, flops and lands on its back on the porch floor and begins to emit the strangest combination of buzzing, vibrating, hissing sound. Is there any other sound quite like it? How many times have you announced to a shrieking toddler or maybe a visiting out-of-stater, don’t worry it’s just a June bug. Summer has arrived!
Do you still shiver remembering that first “I’ve got a June bug stuck in my hair” moment in your life? It likely happened after a fun day at the lake, maybe after eating popsicles on the front porch with the entire collection of neighborhood kids. That one horrible summer, when it happened to you – when you flopped about yelling, “Get it out, get it out, get it out!” to your dad, brother, mom, best friend, anyone.
If you really want to stir things up, announce that they’re actually very high in protein and make a great meal source for raccoons, lizards, birds, frogs, etc. Tell that tall tale of your “friend” who had one fly into their mouth and swallowed it! Great fodder around the campfire.
To our plants and shrubs, these little scarabs can be quite harmful. They emerge at night and gorge themselves on tender leaves, new grass- and flowers like ravenous teenagers at an all-you-can-eat buffet. And those eggs they lay in the soil after a night of beetle love and porch-light turmoil? They become the dreaded grub – the pasty white or gray, segmented worm-like scourge of every summer lawn since God invented the suburb. Our first thought is, “Get the pesticides out tomorrow!” But let’s take a moment to ponder that choice for just a second.
Pesticides are good news for our affected plants and shrubs but not such good news for us, our elderly neighbors or our dogs. Here are just a few thoughts to consider:
- Dogs think grubs taste like peanut butter, so if they ingest one as a happily-dug-up snack and it’s laced with pesticides, well, you do the math.
- As we humans get older, our skin gets thinner, and this allows the pesticides to enter the body more easily. Our nervous systems change as well, and we may not notice changes in our surroundings through our sense of smell, touch- and taste. This makes our response time slower and may mean a longer time exposed to pesticides in the air. Pesticides may speed up damage of the liver or kidneys due to overexposure, and the longer a pesticide stays in the body, the more likely that damage occurs.
- People who take prescription drugs need to think about drug interaction. Chemicals in prescription drugs and pesticides can react once they meet each other inside your body. These reactions could cause unexpected health effects.
We can make some smarter choices for our lawn pest control by taking a few precautions and asking some questions from our local lawn and garden experts:
- Minimize your exposure and read the label instructions to protect yourself when using lawn chemicals. Wear long sleeves and pants, and closed-toed shoes, and cover your eyes and mouth.
- Only spray lawn chemicals on calm, non-windy days. Morning is best.
- Be careful when spraying and avoid standing water that can run off into our streams and rivers.
- Do your best to maintain a healthy lawn and avoid dry bare spots in the grass. Remove dry and rotting material that could incubate invaders in the first place.
- Ask your local Extension Office or garden center about organic options for your lawn that control the life cycle of the grub but are safe for everyone else.
- Keep pets off the lawn after use for the allotted time recommended on the product label.
- If you hire professionals to care for your lawn, ask them to use only natural products on your grass.
It’s always smart to take a better-safe-than-sorry approach to any chemical use around your yard and your home. If something does happen and you think you’ve been exposed to a pesticide, you can contact the Poison Control Center. You can call the toll-free Poison Help line at 1-800-222-1222, and they will connect you to your local Poison Control Center. They have specially trained experts that can help you.
Enjoy your summer, keep those pesky June bugs out of your mouth and hair, and get outside to take in the wonders that nature has in store for you.