Hi there, you are not wrong about chiggers. When I was a kid, I learned the hard way never to touch Spanish moss (everywhere in the live oaks throughout my hometown, coastal NC), and around here they seem especially to like living in ditches. Your clue there is "deep grass". I don't know how TN is for ticks, but we keep things short against not only chiggers but ticks. One more tip - bird feeders. We feed hummingbirds in the summers and everything else in the winters. They come for the goodies but stick around for ticks, skeeters, gnats, grubs, and whatever else. When we first took this place over (after a relative had aged in place and let things go), we could hardly go outside in warm weather without slathering on bug juice, or else come back with welts and worse from the bites and stings. I don't even bother nowadays. Attract some birds and cut that grass so you can better enjoy that nice backyard!
Great tip about the bird feeder. I'm going to do that.
I've found that taking a hot shower with lots of soap immediately after I leave the garden takes care of most of the chiggers. They apparently need a little while to get settled in to eating you and you can wash them off if you're diligent in soaping up. It's a big pain, though, if you want to go out into the garden more than once a day.
Hi there, you are not wrong about chiggers. When I was a kid, I learned the hard way never to touch Spanish moss (everywhere in the live oaks throughout my hometown, coastal NC), and around here they seem especially to like living in ditches. Your clue there is "deep grass". I don't know how TN is for ticks, but we keep things short against not only chiggers but ticks. One more tip - bird feeders. We feed hummingbirds in the summers and everything else in the winters. They come for the goodies but stick around for ticks, skeeters, gnats, grubs, and whatever else. When we first took this place over (after a relative had aged in place and let things go), we could hardly go outside in warm weather without slathering on bug juice, or else come back with welts and worse from the bites and stings. I don't even bother nowadays. Attract some birds and cut that grass so you can better enjoy that nice backyard!
Great tip about the bird feeder. I'm going to do that.
I've found that taking a hot shower with lots of soap immediately after I leave the garden takes care of most of the chiggers. They apparently need a little while to get settled in to eating you and you can wash them off if you're diligent in soaping up. It's a big pain, though, if you want to go out into the garden more than once a day.