Natural bug repellant for the home

[8rounder]

Take several bodark apples ( You know,the ones that stay green and are bumpy all over and not edible.) place them under your house or around the inside where they won't be disturbed. This repels bugs and spiders for as long as the apple lasts. They will shrivel down to almost nothing with no smell.
I have also heard of people cutting them up and sprinkling them around the outside of the house.

It really does work!

[naedlaen]

Other names for this tree are Osage orange and hedge.  And it is quite common for people to use the fruit of this tree as a repellent.

Hedge apples or Osage orange.  The tree has nasty thorns and extremely tough wood.  It grows in Hardiness zone 5 and the southern part of zone 4.  In Iowa that is roughly south of US 30.

The limbs make great fence posts that last almost forever.

[pintaildrake]

also known as Moraceae Maclura pomifera
i had to take a Tree ID class and learn 150 trees and 150 sets(family genus and Spp.) of latin.

[Woodbutcher]

8rounder:
 I didn't know that! I picked up a couple driving around, even this late in the season, and I'm going to try it.
 Also known as Bodark, ( might also be spelled differently) makes, arguably, the best bows, and tool handles,
 anything where a really tough wood is needed. I seem to notice the hedge apples on the roadside as I'm driving, and this keeps me in supply.
                                                         Woodbutcher

[oo_buck]

Other names for this tree are Osage orange and hedge.  And it is quite common for people to use the fruit of this tree as a repellent.

Hedge apples or Osage orange.  The tree has nasty thorns and extremely tough wood.  It grows in Hardiness zone 5 and the southern part of zone 4.  In Iowa that is roughly south of US 30.

The limbs make great fence posts that last almost forever.

Locust trees also have thorns, and also make great fence posts......

How would this work for a bow?

[Shorty]

Before there were window screens there were... window boxes... under the windows... planted with flowers that repelled flies.  I forget what kind of flower that was.

[Nightrain52]

Hedge or Osage Orange also makes some of the hottest firewood you will ever burn. I have never seen it done but I have heard of people melting some of the thin-walled wood-burners!

[Glanceblamm]

Shorty wrote:

Before there were window screens there were... window boxes... under the windows... planted with flowers that repelled flies. I forget what kind of flower that was.

That would be the Marigold (spelling) also great for keeping the squash bugs out of your garden.

[encore4me]

This wood is also called Boise De-arc (spelling) it is used to make duck and goose calls. Yes Locust (black) is good for making bows.




Matt

[powderman]

I remember my Uncle Elvis telling about he and 3 other men using 2 4x4s to carry a pot bellied stove outside that was filled with hedge wood, the stove got cherry red. POWDERMAN.          

[WylieKy]

I have heard Osage Orange, as it is called in Ohio, is great for making bows if you can find a tree large enough.  I know form experience that if you plan on cutting one down with a chainsaw, bring and extra chain, as it will burn at least one up before you can section it.  And it burns like coal, makes cured oak look like sycamore.  If it sticks you, it will burn and swell, so either both my Grandfather and I are allergic to it or it has some poison.

[goodshot]

I read an article in Mother Earth News that stated all wood has the same BTU's per pound, some are more dense than others.  I can't think of one more dense or can burn hotter than Hedge.
Hadn't heard of Bodark or the original French sounding name, at the farm I worked on in my youth we used two hedge trunks for corner posts, they had been cut and layed out for a year. Next year they started to sprout, had to straighten the fence staples parallel  to get them to drive in even half way.  The hired man I worked with knew his native woods, Basswood, Cottonwood, Red elm,Hedge,Spruce, etc.  was proficient in what each was best for.
The article in the National Geographic about the ice age hunter whose body was found mentioned his bow as being constructed of different types of wood if I remember correctly, and the items he carried took advantage of the different qualities of wood and materials, really in touch with his evironment.
Heard that at one time the farmers tried to use hedge as a natural fence but the cows would  work their way through, still see a row of them here and there where that was tried.
Always heard Hedge was a preferred component of Native American Bows in this area, of course that was BC ( Before Casino) Best Wishes

[urrlord]

back when i was a tree surgeon i would run into osage once in a while when trimming around power lines.it  was the hardest wood i ran into,if the hydraulic saw wasn't fresh it would almost skitter off and would almost choke it down.the thorns on it will go right thru leather gloves and cause swelling.i wish i had saved a few billets of it,damn heavy.jajacorum was the prettiest it looked like a laminated gunstock-blue,white,gray,orange and brown rings.it was dense also.locust trees hard and thorny,seen a thorn go thru a dump body truck tire.it was used to make the wooden mounts for the  glass /porcelain insulators on power poles. lasts forever.

[Duke0313]

This wood is also called Boise De-arc (spelling) it is used to make duck and goose calls. Yes Locust (black) is good for making bows.




Matt

Bois D'arc

[Cornbelt]

Will hedge apple juice keep the dang bugs out of your ears? I think I might just try it.

[rex6666]

Right after the dust bowel in Oklahoma, the gov. planted "shelter belts"
4-6 rows of trees deep these were 1/2 -1 mile long. i know of 2 of these
that had 2 rows of Bois D' arc (bodark) in them some of these trees in the 60s
were 24" thick some had died still standing, I better make a trip up there
and see what is left.

[blind ear]

"BO DOCK" and " MESQUITE" ARE TOUGH ENOUGH TO WEAR OUT 3 SETS OF POST HOLES. Deer love bodock apples. Honey locust pods have a streak of sugar that deer love. When you find black lima beans ,or "black butter beans" in a deers gut that seem to be made of hard plastic or ivory it is probably locust seed.

[spikehorn]

I learned about locus thorns the hard way, grab a young locus tree to keep from falling into a creek. There was a guy in my home town who marketed his locus fence posts with an add in the local pennysaver that said "these fence posts will last one day longer than a rock"

[good shot]

clearing some unwanted locust trees we found that the thorns could stick in the tires, then a few weeks later would work through and cause the flat.
Tough stuff.

[hillbill]

ive got a hedgeapple, bodark, osage orange, whatever yu wanna call it, post on one corner of my place, set in concrete, with 1951 writ in the concrete, with the name of the family and all thier kids. we call it hedgeapple here in missouri.its about the size of a coffe can and solid as a rock.ummm can ya beat that?ive went bak from useing pipe posts to all hedge or telephone poles.the metal is just too high.

[spikehorn]

We had a guy that used to sell locus fence posts, and his selling line in the paper was "will last one day longer than a rock"

[Rex in OTZ]

Years back there used to be a few hedge apple/osage orange in a county sectionline shelterbelt that would set on fruit the size of a large grapefruit, Dad said they used to make rail road ties from them trees down Missouri way, on our place we had some voluntier locus saplings growing in a pasture that were a booger to cut without a good sharp chainsaw, they'd spark when cut with a chainsaw.

In Alaska we by a product by the case full, Buhach is a powder made from powderd pyrethrum flower peddals its good to dust anyplace you dont want bugs, it can be dumped in a heap and set alight as a smudge that keeps all sots of bugs at bay, I use it inside windows, electrical conduit, attic crawl space's, anyplace having allot of bugs that is bad, works pretty good as a passive (natural) insecticide, the Pyethrum flowers are in the Marigold family.
A friend that works the coastal defence radars had a problem with insects comeing in from every crack and cranny and packing up the warm electrical equipment overheating it causeing all sorts of mayham, just dusting this powder by the entry points cured the bug problem, Flies die shortly after contacting this dust, It is harmless to warm blooded creatures, i dust it on my dogs for flies and mosquitos, the can label claims to also work on flea's and lice as well.

[JBlk]

We use alot of hedge post around this part of the country.Many of them were put in the ground many years before I was a gleem in Dads eyes and I will soon see seventy.The wood contains a natural oil that makes them burn hot and last almost forever.If you set the post in gravel and cut the top at an angle so the water runs off you will never see it rot in your lifetime.The wood hardens as it ages and it becomes almost impossible to drive a staple into.Hedge is used very spareingly in the wood stove.One small piece to several pieces of elm or oak will make a good fire.If you use too much hedge it will melt your stove.The Indians made short bows from the osage orange that the average man would never be able to draw back.This part of the country had hedge rows as fences, and they were on almost every farm.The fence was indestructable and made a haven for wildlife.But as the price of grain esclated most of those rows were cut or pushed into large piles and burned.

[Rex in OTZ]

www.buhach.com