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Mosquito spraying after Hurricane Harvey
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Author:  Dabbler [ Thu Sep 21, 2017 9:21 am ]
Post subject:  Mosquito spraying after Hurricane Harvey

I missed any news announcements that our neighborhood was to be sprayed with the Dibrom administered by the Pentagon plane (?!?!) last evening 9-20-17. I had covered plantings that attract masses of bees days ago when I DID HEAR that spraying would begin in west Houston, and I thought our zip code (near Barker Reservoir) had already been sprayed. Last night there were still numerous walkers and dogs outside about 8 o'clock when what looked like a low-flying jet whizzed down a major street in our subdivision flying east to west just above rooftops emitting trails of spray. I observed this while walking south to north about a football field's distance away from the sighted spray plane. A friend and I turned to walk the opposite direction and decided to knock on a neighbor's door to borrow towels to cover our noses before continuing to our houses. We were inside that neighbor's house about 10 minutes and just as we started to open the glass storm door to step back outside, I saw a horizontal row of five bright headlights really low in the (west) sky speeding directly towards us on a return fly-over. Fortunately, we barely dodged a direct spraying. My angst is about the limited news coverage about the spraying schedule. There appears to have been only one initial announcement listing zip codes, but with no pinpointed spraying schedule. (Oh, the Director of Houston Health Department's Mosquito and Vector Control -- Dr. Mustapha Debboun -- had said days earlier on KHOU-TV's news show that the spray has been used for over 25 years "and it has not hurt anybody." He casually said beekeepers had been forewarned to cover their hives and that people should just stay inside during evening hours -- but how many evenings?

My question to you: I have a newly planted vegetable bed of organic transplants of kale, collards, parsley, etc -- and lingering crops of okra and cucumbers that were exposed to the wafting chemical. (Thankfully, our neighborhood did not get any of the polluted flood waters.) Will successive drenchings of Garrett Juice and/or liquid seaweed "detox" my new vegetable plants, or should I pull them up and start over? I had not mulched yet, so my organically enriched soil got some of the drift, too. What, if anything, should organic gardeners do for our ornamental plantings?

Author:  Doug [ Sun Nov 05, 2017 8:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mosquito spraying after Hurricane Harvey

Yes.

Foliar spray with Garrett Juice. BioSafe or PlantWash commercial products will also clean the plants.

Here is some information on what the city was spraying:
http://www.texasorganicresearchcenter.o ... q13093.htm

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