Poison Ivy

Q. Help! I watered my tomato plants with a sprinkler every day and babied them in every way. But the bottom leaves of all my plants turned yellow, then brown and then dried up. I'm deeply distressed. What could have happened?A. You may have killed your tomatoes with kindness. If your soil is saturated with water from excessive irrigation, the tomato plant roots may be deprived of oxygen. Lack of oxygen causes wilting and leaf yellowing.On the other hand, your plants' lower leaves may be infected with early blight, a common soil-borne fungus that splashes onto lower leaves during watering.

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was on the phone to East Hampton, chatting with James Brady about his new novel, "Gin Lane." It's set in the Hamptons, a place he certainly knows something about, and is filled with all sorts of glamorous, real-life characters. But what I really wanted to know was Jim's secret for compressing celebrity lives into 550-word profiles in Parade magazine. The 12-year-old weekly column is called "In Step With." How does he do it?"I try to focus on the single one or two things that I hadn't known before," said Jim, 69. "And I try to get that up very close to the top of the story.

AS A JOURNALIST and environmentalist, I endorse freedom of expression for both people and the land on which they live.It's one reason I just say no to lawn care -- and abstain even from leaf raking -- on my suburban half-acre at the corner of Oak Ridge and Acorn in Wicomico County.Faithful readers may recall previous progress reports celebrating the increasing shagginess, the burgeoning dishevelment, nurtured through years of studied inattention to my grounds.I'm proud to report the spring of '98 saw the emergence -- eight years after the first one appeared -- of a second pink lady-slipper, a delicate woodland orchid.

Though gardening is wonderful for the soul, it can be pretty hard on the skin. Perpetually scrubbing off the good earth from spring through fall takes its toll in epidermal moisture. In addition to battling dry skin, some gardeners spend whole seasons spackled with poison ivy. But there are new and time-honored ways to clean, heal and protect gardeners' skin, many derived from plants and other natural ingredients.CleaningSmith & Hawken's Gardener's Remedy Hand Scrub ($18 for 8.5 ounces) contains pumice and coconut shell as abrasives, while rosemary-scented Farmer's Friend Gardener's Soap ($5.95 for 6 ounces at Fresh Fields)

Instead of spending a lot of money on flower transplants this spring, I want to grow my own impatiens, begonias and petunias. How do I begin?The three flowers you mention have very small seeds that are difficult to work with. The plants also need high temperatures to germinate and grow (70-75 degrees), come up very slowly and take a long time (12-24 weeks) to get to transplanting size.You may want to continue buying these plants and to grow from seed some easier flowers, such as marigolds, zinnias, nasturtiums and salvias.

Most of us know the age-old saying "Shiny leaves of three, leave them be."Yet most of us know someone who has suffered from not heeding that saying. Fifty million Americans ooze and itch from an allergic reaction to poison ivy every year.Sharon Lukens, 41, of Jarrettsville says she knows what it looks like, takes precautions when gardening - and still gets a bad case at least four times each summer."I've had it on my face, in between my fingers, ankles and behind my knees," she says. "And once I think I've gotten rid of it, then it appears somewhere else."

WHILE THE Teamsters' strike against United Parcel Service seems to have gained them some public sympathy, the labor union has had its troubles over the years. Past corruption was a major problem, and some locals haven't portrayed unionism in the best light.Take, for instance, Local 70, which filed a grievance against Mills College in Oakland, Calif. The college's alleged sin? Hiring a company that used a herd of goats to clear poison ivy and blackberry brambles from 40 acres of college property.

I am eager to plant blueberries in my back yard and would like to know how to get started.If you want your blueberries to produce for many years, you need to select a sunny and well-drained location.Next, take a soil sample. Blueberries require a low soil pH, between 4.3 and 5.0. You will probably need to incorporate iron sulfate into the soil. Blueberries also need soils high in organic matter.You'd be better off planting blueberries next spring after your site has been properly prepared.

Those new old knitsMissoni, a status label of the '70s, has been resurrected for the '90s. The Italian house, which was known for its distinctive and colorful zigzag and striped knits for men and women, fell out fTC of fashion for two decades, a victim of Armanization and minimalist fashion. With the revival of so many '70s influences in today's collections, the Missoni style has clout once more.Many designers put patterned knits in their collections, and the style looks fresh after many years of black sweatering.

MY SON HAS poison ivy, and I am as helpless to cure him as if he had smallpox.His face is streaked with tiny blisters, and his eyes are red and swollen. Each morning, another angry slash of poison-ivy bubbles shows up somewhere else on his body, like wild strawberries in the spring. The poor child looks as though he's been hacking through the deadly thorn hedges around Sleeping Beauty's castle.I took him to the doctor, where I paid good money to learn that nothing can be done. Only time heals poison ivy, and it gets worse before that happens.

This is one of those products Gear Girl wishes she did not have to test. But although she is very careful outdoors, she sometimes misses the warning signs ("Leaves of three ... "). The lack of vigilance leads to little red bumps, a rash and the insatiable desire to scratch 24/7 - the calling card of poison ivy. The American Academy of Dermatology estimates that 85 percent of us will develop an allergic reaction if we touch poison ivy, oak or sumac, so finding relief ranks high on the adventure must-have list.

Perhaps a herd of goats will help Gibson Islanders solve a mystery that was created when an ancient tulip poplar that blew over six years ago during Tropical Storm Isabel revealed several handmade bricks in its extensively tangled root ball. Earlier this year, a Gibson Islander out for a stroll with his dog was greeted with a present of a handmade brick when his dog exited the thick underbrush. A quick glance and the passer-by realized that it wasn't a typical run-of-the-mill Home Depot brick; it turns out it harks back to the 18th century.

In yet another partnership between Maryland government and goats, Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold said that the munching power of a herd of 40 goats will be employed to help clear invasive vines and plants from a half-acre site at Hancock's Resolution Park in Pasadena. Monday's announcement came two months after the State Highway Administration enlisted another group of goats on a similar mission in Carroll County to protect the habitat of the bog turtle. The goats, on loan at no cost to the county from Garden Farms in Davidsonville, are scheduled to graze on overgrown bittersweet, honeysuckle and poison ivy plants for two days later this summer.

Question: : I started taking lisinopril for high blood pressure in December. Soon after, I developed a nagging dry cough that wouldn't stop. I have thrown up because the coughing was so bad. I also have had blood tests and chest X-rays. They all came back negative. In desperation, I went to an ear, nose and throat specialist, who told me this kind of cough is common in people my age (50) due to postnasal drip. He knew I was on lisinopril but gave me an antihistamine and cough suppressant.

If ground ivy is permitted to climb a tree, will it eventually kill the tree? We believe you are referring to English ivy, not ground ivy, which is a lawn weed also known as Creeping Charlie and cannot climb trees. It is true that English ivy should not be allowed to grow up trees or shrubs; it envelops branches and blocks sunlight, causing branch dieback and potentially fatal weakening of the tree. The added weight also makes trees susceptible to blow-over during storms. To begin controlling English ivy, cut it off at the base any time of year.

When researching my master's thesis for the preservation of a historic road, I hiked the old road with a local man. We walked through a field of shoulder-high plants for about 50 yards when he turned to me and said, "I hope you're not allergic to poison ivy, because this is a field of it." When I noticed a small spot on one hand starting to itch, the man pulled a weed along a hedgerow where he said it usually grows. He crushed the weed to produce a small amount of liquid and rubbed it on the spot.

No one would ever mistake the median strip of Interstate 95 for the Grand Canyon's breathtaking Indian Springs campground. Maybe an ancient Indian burial ground, what with all the carcasses of animals sacrificed to four-wheeled machines that menace mere feet away. Yet there's something wild and slightly adventurous about pitching a tent under the stars and having dinner by the glow of thousands of headlights. Maryland - that is you and I - owns the land between the northbound and southbound lanes of the artery that connects Maine to Florida.

"Measles make you bumpy. And mumps'll make you lumpy. And chicken pox'll make you jump and twitch," the Coasters warned us eons ago. "But poison ivy, Lord'll make you itch." You can be on red alert all summer for poison ivy and its evil cousins, poison sumac and poison oak, but when your number's up, there's not much you can do. Cortaid is selling a scrub and wipes that remove urushiol, the oily substance that makes you bumpy and scratchy. The scrub comes in a kit ($30) that includes a spray to cover the affected area to allow healing.

Baltimore's school buildings are the oldest in Maryland, so whether there's a leaky roof or a broken boiler, officials are used to having things go wrong. But a school infested with chiggers? "I've never heard of chiggers in my life," said Alice Watson, a longtime school system official. "It's a first for me." The trouble began Friday afternoon at Violetville Elementary, when a teacher noticed on a classroom windowsill a slew of the mite-like bugs, known for bites so itchy they feel like a poison ivy rash.

The leaves of my peace lily are turning brown fast -- only on the edges, though. Is it dying? Peace lilies are sensitive to salt. Leaf-edge browning can indicate a buildup of fertilizer salts. (Yes, synthetic fertilizers are salts.) Put the pot in the sink and drench the potting soils with water two or three time to dissolve out salt residue. In a pot without a drainage hole, repot your plant with new soil in a pot with a drainage hole. Water from a water softener also contains some salt.