Today in the orchard
“You can look but you better not touch!” The Coasters, 1959
Although I love most of the plants that have taken up residence in and around the farm, there are a few exceptions. One of them is Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans). Although it has stayed away from much of the farm, we have found it lurking along the orchard fence line up at Finley Lane. As Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller famously wrote and The Coasters sang:
“Late at night while you're sleepin'
Poison ivy comes a-creepin' around”
If it’s good for something, I don’t know what that is. I don’t seem to be allergic to it, but others are. (“You’re going to need an ocean of Calamine Lotion.) We don’t spray Roundup on the farm so I’ve been looking for organic controls. Today I tried spraying a mixture of vinegar and dish soap: a pint of vinegar, a pint of dish soap and 25 gallons of water. Now we wait to see if it does anything.
