Spiders in garden

[cherishedtiger]

Hey there, so I need to know what I can do to get rid of mainly the spiders in my garden!
They are taking over and well with them being outside, they are learning of the inside of the house!!!
I have a raised bed, and my garden is growing beautifully however as I pull weeds that grow up next to the outside of the bed spiders are everywhere!! All different sorts and sizes!!!! Does anyone out there know of anything I can use (organic or otherwise - at this point I just want them gone!) to rid my garden/yard of the creepy crawlies!?!!?

Thank you!!!!!!

[applestar]

WHY would you want to get rid of spiders?
For each spider you get rid of, there will be that many meals-on-legs -- pests bugs -- that would be munching on your plants. If there is an over-population, the spiders will sort themselves out by eating each other, or else birds will move in to feed on them, along with other bugs.

[Liska]

Why would you want to get rid of spiders? I love them! They grab all the yucky pests that eat my plants and so on. I actually built my raised bed on a spiders home (saw them crawling all over the place while I was digging) so I just left them be. My tomato plants are happy and pest free, as is my zucchini's so far, where they built a big web. I only wish they'd move closer to my brussels sprouts, which are getting eaten

[soil]

since it seems to be the trend....

why would you want to get rid of spiders? keeping them out of your house is understandable, but out of your garden. that's just silly

[cherishedtiger]

Oh... well I guess I wasnt aware that my pest free garden was all thanks to the creepy crawly little guys!

See I learned something new. Thanks! Guess I just gotta spray to keep them from coming inside!

Gee... maybe I should start selling spiders! I have enough!

[Liska]

Oh... well I guess I wasnt aware that my pest free garden was all thanks to the creepy crawly little guys!

See I learned something new. Thanks! Guess I just gotta spray to keep them from coming inside!

Gee... maybe I should start selling spiders! I have enough!

Well, they are rather large and creepy! They just happen to do really good things

[stella1751]

"Why would you want to get rid of spiders?"

I know! I know! I've got this one.

You would want to get rid of spiders if they are venomous, as in the ones that can make you extremely ill. We have Black Widows here. I've only seen one, but I've heard many a horrifying tale of journeys through crawl spaces to fix plumbing. Somewhere in this great nation of ours, citizens also deal with the dreaded Brown Recluse.

There's another local spider that a teenage arachnophile neighbor assured me is a Wolf spider. He told me they bit and created a supporative boil. (Hope I spelled that right. "Oozing" is what he meant.) I have plenty of this kind of spider, and they bite the Big One if I see them.

Before you reach down to pat one of your spiders on the head or thorax or whatever it has, you should probably look it up in your spider book, if you have one. For what it's worth, the ones I hate the most are those Wolf spiders. They give me the serious creeps. Only if they can offer me a contractual agreement that my Delicious tomatoes will set copious amounts of fruit if I ignore their presence would I let them take up residence in one of my beds

[MaryDel]

We have black widows and brown recluses also. I've been bitten twice by the brown recluse. I have a permanent crater from the first bite.

Watch out for the webs. The webs of the BW and the BR both are sprawling with no pattern. Both normally have a funnel shaped structure on one end. Both like to make their webs in cluttered or overgrown areas.

The BR also likes to hide in leaf piles or in debris piles.

[cherishedtiger]

Ah yes, the black widow is a common threat at my house. Those are kill on site! Brown recluse luckily are not common around here, but that doesn't mean they aren't possible! The wolf spider however northern California is literally crawling with them (no pun intended lol)

I will have to take a look and make sure that there arent any potentially dangerous ones in the garden area itself, but so far its just a lot of little ones that as most of you have said are better for the garden! So I will learn to live with the little guys, especially since they are the reason I have so few bad bugs!

[microcollie]

As a rule, both black widows and brown recluse like to live in places darker and drier than the garden (houses, barns, woodpiles, etc.) I wouldn't be too worried about meeting up with one in the garden.

[MaryDel]

As a rule, both black widows and brown recluse like to live in places darker and drier than the garden (houses, barns, woodpiles, etc.) I wouldn't be too worried about meeting up with one in the garden.

Don't tell that to the half a dozen brown recluses I have seen in my garden this summer

[Dixana]

I have nothing to say other than any spider that crosses my path will meet certain death. As will earwigs, centipedes, and any other bug that I find repulsive. I can't help it.

[microcollie]

Interesting that you'd put a Ghandi quote after that statement! [/quote]

[microcollie]

By the way, MaryDel. If you really do have brown recluse in your garden in Delaware, it should be reported. They are not supposed to live there, and sightings should be reported to someone. (wildlife service maybe?) I can only find news of two sightings in the last few decades.

[Dixana]

That quote is my signature, so it appears after anything I post.

[applestar]

I'm hearing a lot of folks admit to morbid fear of bugs, at the most extreme, to simply, eew creepy! I've been trying to pin point when I stopped screaming my head off.... Because once upon a time I was like that too.

Surely one turning point was Sophomore year at the University. My roommate, it turned out, was deathly afraid of spiders, and our dorm room in a brick building dating back to before the university was established, covered in Boston ivy was full of them. She would scream and scream, grab nearest handy object and smack that spider so hard that the juices spattered everywhere and the spider was smeared across the caked with who knows how many layers of glossy paint cinderblock walls. In no few occasions, I snatched MY things out of her hands and substituted hers. I thought the spider spatter was more gross than the spider.

Fastforward nearly to the present: As a toddler, my younger daughter was so bug phobic that she became nearly paralyzed with anxiety while being outside. DH suspected it was the result of an unfortunate freak incident at the beach when she was less than a year old. While both of us were occupied in trying to gather our possessions, she was untended for a matter of moments. when we looked up at her weird shriek/wail, she was covered from head to toe by beach flies. I don't know what could have prompted them to do such a thing. I've never seen anything like it before or since.

It was heart breaking to see her playing happily, then become more and more nervous until she was shaking with fear. Whenever she was overcome, it was imperative that she reached a bug-free haven. I had to totally block out any negative emotions in myself, pity, frustration, my own sense of the creepy -- whatever. I willed myself into a zone of serenity and calm that she could hang onto until she felt safe again while I gathered her up and signaled my older daughter to follow along. Luckily my older daughter was old enough to understand, did not share any of the fears, and even developed ways to distract and comfort her sister. She also had the presence of mind to grab whatever I may have missed and follow to the car or indoors.

I began naming every bug we saw. I described their characteristics, habitats, lifecycles, and exclaimed over their uniqueness. I pointed out any dead bug we saw while we were out, picked up butterfly wings, dead cicadas, and dragonflies. It wasn't long before my younger daughter started asking to keep them. I made collecting boxes out of jewery boxes covered with clear plastic lids. Dead ladybugs from the windowsill, a bumblebee found on the driveway, paper wasp's nest, empty cicada and butterfly pupae started to fill out her collection.

We started an annual summer project of collecting Monarch butterfly eggs and caterpillars to raise, tag and release. We released nearly 75 last year.

Somewhere along the way, she shed her fear of bugs. When she was 6, she ran inside for her sketch pad and colored pencils to draw all the insects she saw on the spearmint flowers. There were 15 distinct species, and she sat there and drew them all. This spring, she stirred our home made compost into a potting mix with me, and observed all the soil dwellers that ran from the light, and she stood closer than any of us to watch hundreds of baby praying mantises emerge from their egg casing. She proudly showed me a 7-11 big gulp cup in which she captured a stinkbug that had been in her sister's room and told me that she can flush it down the toilet on her own.

[The Helpful Gardener]

We need to be a little more supportive of our insect and arachnid friends; many do us services we cannot begin to handle for ourselves, and do so despite the evils we visit on them...

While there are a few spiders I will eliminate (we don't see BW around here much, but do get the BR), wolf spiders and such get a free pass. Wolves are voracious hunters and take out a lot of badguys, and most spiders are garden good guys in the biggest way...

We bring our preconceptions to the garden, unaware as to whether they are true or not. Our prejudices hold little value to the natural world, which governs itself in manners we cannot comprehend. Fukuoka-sensei speaks of spiders when dealing with our myopic vision.

"As an example, I told the gentleman from the research station when he was investigating the relationship of leaf hoppers and spiders in my fields, "Professor, you are interested in only one among the many predators of the leafhopper. This year spiders appeared in great numbers, but last year it was toads. The year before it was frogs that dominated. There are countless variations."

We see what we want and ignore the positives of many of our tiny co-species. Ants might ruin a picnic, but they redistribute sub-soil minerals in an amazing fashion. Spider webs might be annoying in your face, but they are the best bug catching devices ever. We tamper with our natural patterns and rythyms with no understanding of the consequences; DDT use against mosquitoes has actually increased malaria in Africa as it kills more predators than mosquitoes in the long run. Yet people will still tell you it is needed... For what? Profits?

So be good to your spiders. Our discussion here has centered around two badguys out of thousands of species. Like bacteria, or fungi, or insects, the grand majority of spiders are not just benign, but actually beneficial. Let's keep that to mind before we start blindly squishing anyone...

HG

P.S. Just popped back to note AS's post (we were typing madly at the same time). AS, what an incredible story about insects, mothering, and the strength of the human ties to nature. All three displayed there in the strongest possible terms; what a wonderful story! I love happy endings!

[stella1751]

We have black widows and brown recluses also. I've been bitten twice by the brown recluse. I have a permanent crater from the first bite.

Watch out for the webs. The webs of the BW and the BR both are sprawling with no pattern. Both normally have a funnel shaped structure on one end. Both like to make their webs in cluttered or overgrown areas.

The BR also likes to hide in leaf piles or in debris piles.

After reading this post, I google-imaged the brown recluse and saw graphic photos of the damage it can do. Some fellow was missing the better part of his thumb. I'm pretty sure we don't have them here, and I'm glad! As zoned out as I get when I am gardening, I'd be sure to miss one.

microcollie, the one black widow I saw was in an empty cooler I had left setting out by the garden. It was open and in full sun. Frequently, bugs wind up in places they're not supposed to be: the wasp that miraculously appears in front of your face while you are driving down the road, the caterpillar on your shoulder that you don't notice until you look in the mirror, the earwig that hitches a ride into the house on the back of a dog. Nature is full of surprises.

Applestar, I loved your story! I'm glad your daughter made it past her bug-a-phobia. Mine never got past her fear of the Garden spider, which is quite common in the Sioux Falls, SD, area.

[MaryDel]

By the way, MaryDel. If you really do have brown recluse in your garden in Delaware, it should be reported. They are not supposed to live there, and sightings should be reported to someone. (wildlife service maybe?) I can only find news of two sightings in the last few decades.

There are brown recluse spiders in Delaware. The first time I was bitten was at Cape Henlopen State Park while I was camping. I had no Idea what bit me until years later. I was bitten right on the eyebrow at night while I was sleeping. The wound pussed up, then scabbed over, then the scab fell and the wound pussed up and scabbed over........repeat....repeat repeat......that's what cause the crater It's partially hidden by my eyebrow.

I've researched them thoroughly, and the second time I was bitten I knew right away what it was. I immediately got treated for a brown recluse bite in Dover.

A co-worker put on her slipper one night and was bitten by one. She ended up nearly losing her foot. She killed the spider when she put her foot in and kept it after it bit her. The Doctor said it was a brown recluse. She ended up having to retire with a disabilty from the bite it was so bad.

There are several poisonous sub species of the BR, but they all share the same charracteristics. They have fangs, build unkempt webs with a funnel like opening at one end, are fast, long legged spiders whose bodies are slung lower than their knees while at rest. Some are more poisonous than others, and all are capable of inflicting painful bites and carrying the bacteria that causes necrosis. They also have the tell tale violin marking on their backs

I could go out in my barn right now and probably kill 20 of them in 10 minutes. They are everywhere. I saw five or six the other day while I was pulling up black plastic in my garden. They love hiding in there. There are Northern BWs here too, even though people claim that is false.

I bought 8 pallets of stone from PA, and had a BW infestation for about 5 years. I still see 1 or 2 in my barn every year. I know what they look like too

I've read that many spiders are transported around the country in this manner.

[Dixana]

I too have a story/reason I'm terrified of spiders, but I've never gotten over it. We used to go to my uncles cabin every fourth of July. I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor. The year I was 7 or 8 (first grade or so) I woke up in the middke of the night with stinging pain all over. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and found my self COVERED in spiders and burning itchy red welts. Every adult on the property was wasted so I was in a fit of complete hysteria by the time people realized what was happening and helped me. The next day I was so covered in bumps I looked like I had chicken pox, and I mean everywhere. To this day I have no idea what kind of spiders the were but all spiders just freak me out.
Sometimes (:oops: this is embarassing....) I can't even kill them cuz I'm afraid to get too close.
So it isn't ALL bugs with me. Othet than spiders I will kill centipedes, earwigs, and silverfish. But as far as I'm concerned every spider within 500 yards of me can just die. Birds and bats can take over for them BLEH!

[stella1751]

There are several poisonous sub species of the BR, but they all share the same charracteristics. They have fangs, build unkempt webs with a funnel like opening at one end, are fast, long legged spiders whose bodies are slung lower than their knees while at rest. Some are more poisonous than others, and all are capable of inflicting painful bites and carrying the bacteria that causes necrosis. They also have the tell tale violin marking on their backs.

This has been an eye-opening thread for me. After reading the above description of the BR web, which is identical to that made by my so-called "Wolf" spiders, and your description of the bite that pussed up and scabbed over and pussed up and scabbed over, much like my last spider bite, I became suspicious about my teenage neighbor's identification of my garden buddies. I googled Wyoming spiders.

My spiders are either BR's (we DO have them in Wyoming!) or Hobos. My money's on Hobos, simply because the bites I have suffered did not become injuriously necrotic, just, like you said, pussed up and scabbed over and pussed up and scabbed over. (My old eyes aren't good enough to make out any detail, such as a violin marking, and I'll be darned if I will catch one for a closer look!)

Thanks, Liska, for starting this thread. You, too, MaryDel, for the detailed descriptions. I have decided to quit gardening and take up welding or anything else that requires arming myself with a blow torch.

[tedln]

This thread sounds like a normal conversation between me (who likes spiders) and my grandsons (who hate and detest spiders).

Recently, one of my grandsons found a huge web with a really large zipper spider right in the middle. We call them zipper spiders because they build their web with a zig zag pattern on one side that looks like a zipper. My grandson was literally shivering as if he had just seen a huge venomous snake. I told him the spider was huge but harmless so leave him alone. I asked him later if he had checked on the spider again to make sure it is okay. He said "the spider is dead because it wasn't smart enough to get out of the way of my shovel".

Some people like them, some people don't. I found a black widow nesting in a stack of empty flower pots today. I carried the pot to the pasture and banged it on the ground a couple of times to dislodge the spider. I hope he is happy in the pasture.

Ted

[tedln]

When our kids were small, we enjoyed tent camping at different lakes. On one trip with another family, we were all sleeping outside in sleeping bags on the ground. It was to hot too sleep in the tent. At some point, one of the kids started screaming because really large wolf spiders had woke her by climbing over her face. When we looked with flashlights, it seemed every wolf spider on earth was migrating across our camping spot. They simply climbed over every obstacle in their path with all of them heading the same direction. We put the kids and ladies in the tent, zipped the doors closed, sealed it with tape, and everyone went back to sleep. I slept the entire night with the wolf spiders crossing over me heading where ever they were going. No one suffered a bite.

Ted

[tedln]

When we lived in East Texas, we loved to ride our ATV's on the trails in the forrest early in the mornings. At night, huge spiders would build webs across the trails. After riding for two or three hours, the lead rider would look as if he or she had been on a silk collecting mission with all the web material streaming from his head. I've never enjoyed hitting multiple spider webs face first with the spider right in the middle. We bought some on those whippy fiberglass antenna things kids put on their bikes and mounted them on the front of the ATV's. Everyone thought we were funny with all the cartoon character flags mounted on our ATV's, but for us; they were spider catchers. I remember looking down some of those trails when dew droplets were clinging to everything. With the morning sun in the background, it looked like a fairyland with sunlight reflecting off the dew on the spider webs.

Ted

[stella1751]

I was 5 when my father moved us to Texas while he attended the Border Patrol Academy. We were either in Harlingen or El Paso; I can't remember which, but I think it was Harlingen. I have only four memories of that time: Swimming in the street after a hurricane (Carla?), being bitten by a fire ant, watching my brother swing right back into a wasp's nest or a bee hive, and seeing a tarantula on the concrete steps of some building, maybe our house.

You want to see a fierce-looking spider, see a tarantula on the loose. If memory serves, he told us it had probably come up on a banana boat. He killed it, stepped right on it. He wasn't a bully; he was a father of six children ages 4 to 10.

Odd the way childhood memories stay with us!

[vermontkingdom]

I use lots of straw as mulch in my garden to provide good habitat for spiders. They help keep the bad guys in check. My wife isn't crazy about them but since she seldom goes into the garden, I do what I can to promote a robust population of them. I actually go out of my way to make sure I don't harm any.

[gixxerific]

You wouldn't believe the amount of spiders in my garden/yard. They don't bother me and I don't bother them.

Yen and yang of sorts.

[The Helpful Gardener]

I'm with VK and Gixx; lots of garden variety spiders and happy for each of them. Knocking out badguys at a good rate; the non web spinning brown spiders I see in my garden are mostly[url=https://www.hr-rna.com/RNA/images/Spiders/Garage%20Wolf%20rez.jpg]wolf spiders[/url]and are voracious predators of flies, mosquitoes, grubs and most other ground creatures including other spiders. I like 'em becasue I think they help keep down earwigs; I could use the help.... some are surely funnel web grass soiders as well...

That "zipper spider" sure sounds like a [url=https://I.pbase.com/v3/48/95248/1/48116303.GardenSpider5.jpg]garden spider[/url]; I would like more of them too... good for flying type insects...

Turns out what I have been calling a recluse aint'; seems [url=https://dermatology.cdlib.org/DOJvol5num2/special/recluse.html]overreacting to reports of recluse[/url] may be epidemic...

Again, more good guys than bad...

HG

[Gary350]

I hate spiders but they are my friend in the garden. It is very rare for me to see a spider in my garden it may be because I have 25 bird houses. The birds eat all the bugs maybe the birds eat the spiders too.

Wolf spicers and jumping spiders are really cool spiders.

This is a pretty common large yellow garden spider. I hate these things but I leave them be because they eat bugs. I have not seen one of these in 10 years.

https://I.pbase.com/v3/48/95248/1/48116303.GardenSpider5.jpg

If you have bugs you will have spiders.

[stella1751]

I have plenty of spiders, too. I haven't a clue what kinds they are, with the exception of what we call a Daddy Long Legs. They pretty much do their own thing. EXCEPT for the Hobos. I kill them. (I kill mosquitos, too.)

[Zapatay]

Apple I love it - Thanks for sharing. It's given me ideas on what I can do.

We had 2 nieces visit us from Boston. These girls were mortified with the spiders (We call them ladies) in the backyard.

I know all the ladies and where they live and we avoid those that I'm not comfy with (one of them follows me when I'm near her web...I swear she does)

Anyway - My daughter and I simply talk of the spiders and what they may be doing, never really probing or investigating..just simple discussions.

When the girls from Boston arrives they were manic with fear of a few of the ladies. My daughter was clueless (of course she's 3) as to why they were screaming so she simply joined in the screaming and running. It really bothered me that she did this as we worked so hard on teaching her to simply allow nature to happen and now these new and quite loud girls were killing any bug that came across them. Ladybugs, ants, spiders etc...

I didn't give my baby enough credit. One day they were on the slide and one of the cousins picked her hand high in the sky and was about to kill a spider. My daughter put her little shoulder infront of the hit and told her cousin (as best a 3yr old can) "No hit! It's a baby! She's looking for her mommy!" and my baby put her hand out...allowed the spider to crawl on her hand...she walked over the to raspberry bush and flicked the spider onto the bush.

Of course I'm tearing up as if she just saved another child's life... It was adorable.

It may be irresponsible but I will not try to identify the spiders we have (many large and some colorful) as we've co-existed for years w/o a problem. (The big ladies are in the back of the property) If I am able to identify it as being poisonous, it may change their "beauty" into a worry(from a mamas perspective) and I rather not....

[garden5]

I don't have too may spiders. I usually only see them when I'm tilling or weeding. The most common ones are the brown ones (I think they're called wolf spiders).