Thank you for your question!
I have 4 children and 3 dogs so, safety is very important to me. First let me assure, we will never use a product at your house that I will not put on my lawn first!
There are multiple factors that determine reentry time, temperature, product, application technique, etc. Our rule of thumb is once the product is dry normal reentry is fine. NC State did a study on this very issue and found after 2 hours there were no traces that could transfer from the plant to the person. Your technician will always leave a sign indicating what he did, the time and reentry time. If it’s a day like today with sun and warm temps two hours is more than ample time to allow the product to dry.
As far as gardens, yes – we absolutely avoid gardens and anything that is not on the label of the product we are using. Many of the products we use are used in veterinarian applications for fleas and ticks, as well as agriculture, but as a precaution we train our guys to leave a border to be safe.
Thank you for your questions and feel free to write back if you have more questions.
The TurfCommander