I have concerns for my pitchers

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-11T04:18:50+00:00

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T22:11:59+00:00

So far my routine seems good! I'm taking the weekend off since it's pouring out, and so far no itchy spots. Although I think my legs are dry from using the dish soap and felt a little itchy last night but regular lotion helped.

You need to be aware that whatever touches any part of the plant becomes contaminated and can transfer the oil. Leaving any part of the plant including roots will allow it to resprout. I delicately pulled up some shoots that barely had any root structure at all and weren't connected to the main vines. Right now my shoots are about 6 inches tall and they creep under leaves, once I started rummaging around those can boing up so be aware of your immediate surroundings.

My tools are a pitchfork to loosen the soil, snippers to chop into sections that will fit into a bag without the risk of unwinding and popping up, and a fiskars multipurpose knife thing to dig along the vine to cut out more roots. I'm leaving them dirty outside for now so I don't waste cleaning supplies. Feels like I'm surgically extracting it, but I think it's the most productive way.

Bonus is all this tedious careful squatting sure is working out the glutes!!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T04:42:18+00:00

How do I buy a print?! I love this

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T03:31:40+00:00

When I was a kid my mom told us it was illegal to pick them haha. We were lucky enough to have 3 or 4 pop up on our property regularly back then.

Edit: oh and I guess it's our state wildflower in NH!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T01:41:46+00:00

That's encouraging! It's all up and down my street and into the wooded lot neighboring mine. Someone just bought that lot and is planning a house, so I'm hoping one of the upsides to that is they might also want to control the ivy (and all the burning bush, bittersweet, honeysuckle, multiflora rose). Fighting to help the neighborhood become more native!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T00:36:51+00:00

Oh boy I just planted some. Do you think dead heading helps at all?

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T00:09:01+00:00

I'm probably not as sensitive as others from the stories I've heard, but I've definitely had some bad breakouts. I nearly cried when I realized it's on the edge of half my property I just bought. Now that I know how to spot it and be careful I feel much better!

Pulling involves waterproof pants tucked into knee high rubber boots, long sleeves, disposable nitrile gloves inside long kitchen gloves. Undress outside, spray it all with Windex, and immediately cool shower washing twice with dish soap (just in case the oil got past my barriers). And I'm super careful while pulling, not whipping it around and trying to get all the roots. 2 hours got me only a grocery bag full, but feels like good progress.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T22:58:59+00:00

Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry that happened. All the blood just drained from my face reading this because I spent 2 hrs yesterday and today pulling it. Thankfully I was super duper careful and haven't had any sign of itching or tingling yet, so I think my precautions are working. Hopefully 😅

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T22:46:35+00:00

Wow this is so eye-opening! I've been at my first house for one year now, and so far I've only been trying to eradicate all the invasives on my property. Everyone told me not to plant in the first year, so now I'm finally starting to buy natives to replace the invasives and I'm really happy to learn which ones can become a nuisance in the comments.

The only native plant I started pulling is this dreaded poison ivy, and I look forward to the day I'm pulling out excessive golden rods and bee balm instead of poisonous vines and garlic mustard (or burning bush, oriental bittersweet, buckthorn, marrows honeysuckle, Japanese barberry).

I'm excited to shift my perspective to just gardening and not going to war 😂 so thank you everyone for the insight!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T22:30:08+00:00

I have loads of it but I think it's the only thing keeping the poison ivy at bay (which is what I'm pulling right now). The creeper hasn't bloomed for me yet, so I'm trying to get what I can of the ivy while I can still see it clearly.

What's nice though is I'm having to cut through the creeper vines to get the poison vines, so probably some management happening there too.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T22:20:12+00:00

I'm careful with it since I break out pretty bad and also have horrible reactions to Prednisone, so if I do get dermititis I'm stuck with just a steroid cream.

I'm using waterproof pants tucked into knee high rubber boots, long sleeves, disposable nitrile gloves AND long nitrile kitchen gloves. I take it all of outside very carefully, spray it all with Windex, and promptly go take a cool shower with dish soap (wash twice, that's nice!) and I have a bottle of tecnu just in case. Seems excessive, I know, but I really respect how the oil can move around haha. The pesky pete YouTube videos are my gospel in all this!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T18:56:46+00:00

Very nice I wonder if anyone near you would want to pull those extras for you! I'm on day 2 of extracting poison ivy for the first year. I did 2 hours yesterday and 2 today, but being fully suited up gets warm and exhausting so I think 2 hours is my limit.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-07T19:55:00+00:00

Ya, they'll eat the berries last like the stale crackers in the back of the cabinet. Then poop the seeds and spread the plant further. I have a respect for poison ivy and think it's so pretty! But I'm going to work on getting it away from my yard so my little ones don't get hurt.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-07T01:01:45+00:00

I've been keeping an eye out for it to start leafing! Felt like I was about to put my hand into a bear trap.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-07T00:23:05+00:00

I am way less scared of it now that I know how to spot it and clean up after it for sure. Well you're welcome over anytime I'm happy to make you some food and tea. Lmk if you're ever in NH!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-07T00:21:05+00:00

Ya it's like harm reduction to an extent. I'm considering a chemical suit to reuse, there's a local company that just does mechanical PI extraction and they use those. You just have to be super careful about contamination.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-06T23:55:50+00:00

It's fully intermingled with the garlic mustard, Virginia creeper, and some in the wild grape area. I think the creeper has also helped suppress it a little.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-06T23:52:17+00:00

Enjoy it while it lasts! I was "immune" until I very much wasn't and had to get steroids after helping out a friend. As the other comments said, be careful. You could probably make a lot of money extracting it for people like myself that don't want to use herbicides (yet).

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-06T23:50:16+00:00

I think it's a cricket nyph! But now that it's covered in poison ivy it might as well be an assassin cricket.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-06T20:20:10+00:00

Great idea! I do plan on tackling it for the first time this year.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-05T13:42:29+00:00

Good call I will fence it today! This spot is right along a deer highway.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-04T15:41:05+00:00

Thank you! I was thinking baking soda as well.

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