Cohousing-L Mailing List: Poison Ivy - Update

[Pablo Halpern (phalpern]

I just thought I'd bring this list up to date on our war with Poison Ivy on 
our site. Someone in our group got in contact with a woman in Connecticut 
that has created, through experimentation, a method of pulling out PI plants 
and roots without getting it on her skin. She shared her techniques with us. 
Basically, it involoved proper clothing -- heavy pants, washable shoes, 
socks that don't fall down, two long-sleeve shirts, latex gloves with cotton 
work gloves on top and rubber bands around the wrists and ankles. Just as 
important was the method of removing the clothing without touching any 
contaminated area to your skin. The clothing does not need to be thrown out, 
a simple machine wash in cold water is sufficient.

Her method of pulling the plant out with its root requires that you do it at 
exactly this time of year, when the plant has very small red leaves (making 
it easy to spot) and the ground is moist and loose.  Last Saturday, seven of 
our members went to an infested area of our site dress accordingly and 
started pulling out plants. With careful pulling and digging, a single plant 
could lead you to several yards of root in all directions. Sometimes I'd 
pull a root and a plant a few feet away would disapear and come up with the 
root. We think we were successfull at remomving at least 90% of the PI in an 
area of about one acre in less than two hours. To my knowledge, none of us 
got the itchies. With this success behind us, another crew might go out this 
coming Saturday to do some more. We expect that the plants will be too large 
if we wait any longer. This could well become the method of choice for 
dealing with this menace over the next few years. In addition to the seven 
plant-pullers, we had two people provide support by scratching itchy noses 
and wiping suspected exposed areas (with baby wipes). They also fed us 
cookies and drinks. I, personally bathed with Fels-Naptha soap when I was 
done.

I'll keep y'all informed.

- Pablo

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Pablo Halpern                          phalpern [at] world.std.com
(508) 435-5274                         Hopkinton, MA, U.S.A.
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