Missy Marine

We use the pelleted pine for cat litter and bedding for the bottom of our chick/duckling brooders. Then, I use the used/powdered pellets as weed-block around my fruit trees. When wet, the powdered pellets form a dense mat mulch that blocks light and moisture so weeds can't poke through.

craig howard wrote: Do wolf spiders hunt other spiders like these?

Maybe, but wolf spiders aren't much bigger than the large female brown widow spiders, so not sure.

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Can't really encourage other bugs to eat them or discourage other bugs as a food source...it's a pole barn, so it's always somewhat open to the elements (the bay doors never close all the way). I will try leaving the doors wide open during the day so birds might come in and eat them. And I will tackle webs with the broom, though I admit to being kind of scared!

As soon as my juvenile chickens are big enough, I'm going to let them in the barn and see what happens. Hopefully they will eat them all up! :)

Thank you everyone!

We moved onto our new Central Florida property in early May. On the property, about 20 feet from our house, we have an aluminum pole barn with sides and three large bay doors. Was being used previously for housing antique cars. Nothing was in it when we moved here, except the spiders. We should have gotten rid of the spiders before moving our belongings into the barn but we didn't because we didn't have the time and didn't know what to do about the spiders. The barn is completely infested with brown widow spiders--countless small males and dozens of giant females. Egg sacks everywhere. Now, many of my boxes of beautiful books are covered in spider webs. I'll be honest--I'm also pretty scared to go in there because I can't set two feet inside without kicking webs! But I usually just clear the webs away and get what I need (our animal feed is stored in the barn, so I'm usually in there twice per day).

I'm trying to avoid potentially harmful/carcinogenic sprays and powders on this property, as much as possible anyway. My husband bought a fire gun that attaches to a propane tank (it's legit--he mostly uses it for starting coal for the grill) thinking he could burn the spiders out, but that proved to be completely impractical as about 99.99% of our things are totally flammable and the spiders go way up high in the barn anyway.

Are there any domesticated birds or other animals that eat brown widow spiders? Like...can I let my chickens in there, assuming there's nothing toxic/dangerous for them to eat besides the spiders? Would this even work?

Any other ideas on how to get these spiders out and make our barn safe for us to go inside? Thank you!

John C Daley wrote:Sounds nice!
Horses will compact and ruin your soil
Geese or similar may work for you.
Chicken tractors may be ideal and supply eggs
What do you mean when you speak of irrigation?
Will rainfall capture work there and reduce you reliance on the well?

A functional rain catchment system with the capacity to hold lots and lots of water is a DREAM of mine! We have SO. MUCH. RAIN. in the summer here in this part of Florida. There are two structures on the property: the house (960 square feet) and the pole barn (700 square feet). We could catch so much water! So yes, we will be constructing a rain catchment system in the future, but it's going to take time. My husband works full time outside the home, and I homeschool, so these projects will not happen all at once, but designing them now is fun and keeps the dream vivid! :)

When I mentioned installing irrigation, I was referring to digging trenches and laying down the PVC piping to bring water from the well (which is close to the house) to the front and back of the property, so that we can water baby fruit trees and supply drinking water for our animals.

I don't plan on putting any horses on the property. In the future, there may be additional poultry, meat rabbits, beehives, a couple pigs, and eventually, dairy goats, but I tend to dream big and then go with where the Spirit leads me, so nothing is set in stone. :)

Larry Fletcher wrote:My friends often ask me if we are 100% food independent. Here is a video I made about the Winter/Spring season...this is as BAD as it gets!

Great video! I subscribed!

John C Daley wrote:What type of pasture is there?
Do you have any fencing?
Is there a water supply?
How big is your family- water use, etc?

Hi John, thank you for your reply.

I'm not sure what type of pasture there is. It looks like about 2 of the acres of the property are "pasture"--mostly sparse grass growing in acidic sand (typical Florida). I added a couple photos of the property yesterday--you can see the grassy parts of the property bordered by some old oak trees. This property is in the middle of horse country--lots of other 2+ acre plots of land and everybody's got horses or goats mowing their pastures. We're not ready for livestock other than my ducks, and they don't eat grass...so I need to figure out a way to keep the pasture from overgrowth, as our rainy season will be here in a couple months.

The entire 2.41 acres is fenced, though the fence needs to be repaired in 2 or 3 spots.

There is a well on the property, but no irrigation farther than the house. We will eventually be putting in irrigation, but this will take some time.

There are five of us in our family, not including our dog, cats, and ducks. The kiddos don't do much mowing, though. :)

How would y'all recommend I take care of the pasture until I get gardens, paddocks, and food forest installed...? We're gonna hit rainy season in this part of Florida very soon, and that grass is going to grow.

So far, I have the property map and the topo overlay.

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to the forum and congratulations for the new property.

To me, once the fencing is secure, the duck pen erected, then it sounds like your hands will be full of building an addition to the home.

My suggestion would be to have a small kitchen garden to get you started.  Everything else can wait probably until year two.

Your property sounds lovely and again congratulations.  

Thank you!

John C Daley wrote:Why extend the mobile home, instead of building a more effective small home?

We have a large family and need more space to make living more comfortable. We do have plans to build a home on the property in the future.