Sunday, May 18, 2008

This Means War

Fire Ants. Need I say more. Well I don't but I'm going to.

This afternoon I was setting up to weed in the garden and plant some peppers. I have a three gallon container that I use to hold the weeds and move them to the compost pile. I have not moved the container in about a week. It was sitting in an area where I thought a fire ant pile had been taken care. A while back I drenched it with a mound drench of orange oil and molasses in water. Well the little Brazilian monsters were back and had made a mound up inside the container. I was not aware of this and took the container full of mad ants to the compost pile. Ants fell out on my feet legs and middle. I have fire ant stings from my waist to my toes. I won't go into the exact locations, but it was bad, very very bad. Put it this way, I had to strip to get them all off of me.

So now I am mad. I don't care about fire ants as long as they stay away from where I am working and where the boys are playing. I have been told that they eat fleas and ticks. The problems only comes up when they get in my garden or under the swing set, trampoline, or in the log cabin play house. Then they have to die.

I use spinosad with pretty good results. It just takes a long time. The mound drench is pretty effective and very satisfying. I love drowning them as revenge for stinging me. Double Danger had a hint about using coffee on the mounds. Supposedly, they eat it and explode or something. I tried fresh ground coffee beans on two mounds and it seemed to work. Now I am mad enough I want to do something more. So I go on the interweb and find more wacky ways to kill fire ants. I found suggestions such as cayenne pepper and corn starch, instant grits, artificial sweetener, and borax. I didn't have borax or instant grits. I did have chili pequin, corn starch, artificial sweetener, spinosad, and coffee. I mixed all that stuff up and dumped it on the three mounds. I will let you know tomorrow if it worked. We will call this Mad Aunt Debbi's Fire Ant Killing Concoction or MADFAKC. Never mind, I need to work on that a little.

Oh yeah, my teenager called me a communist because I made him study. Looks like he needs to pay more attention in social studies. This is not a communist state. This is a dictatorship and I am the Queen.

18 comments:

  1. Hi, Queenie! Fire ants are one of the major reasons I could never live in Texas (roaches the size of a Volkswagon are another reason). That just sounds so awful.

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  2. Hi, mr. mcgregor's daughter, Those fire ants are a huge drawback to living here, but I wouldn't live anywhere else.

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  3. Good luck with fighting the fight Deb. We are still working on ours. Your potion sounds like a winner though. We shall soon find out eh?

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  4. Hi james, and thanks. If this doesn't work I may try to find some way to burn them out.

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  5. Fire ants eat Yankees!!! Thats why we live here.

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  6. HOLD ON.....I mean Yankees with weird socks!!!!

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  7. Meme, you realize some of readers are not from around heeere.

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  8. Apparently, fire ants DO eat yankees, even a yankee that was transplanted here 30 yrs ago, cause they try to eat me almost daily. BTW, have you tried diatomacious(sp?) earth sprinkled on the mounds? I've had lots of luck with that.

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  9. Hi vonne, meme don't mean nothin with her yankee talk. Yes, the DE works great. I will go get some and add it to the killer concoction. Thanks for the hint.

    Deb

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  10. Deb--that would kill me. I am allergic to the boogers. I didn't know what a fire ant was until we moved to SC 10yrs ago. We now live in NC and they aren't here yet but on the way. When in SC, I accidentally stood on a fire ant hill not knowing what it was---they bit me and I had a few bites that looked like boils. I nearly itched myself to death. So your story scared the life out of me. I hope your remedy works

    As for your Swiss Chard--oh my word!!! How do you cook that in such large amounts? You will need a very large pot. Or do you cut it up and put it in salad---you will need a bigger monkey. You must make good compost!

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  11. Hi anna, I will do my best to make sure the ants in my yard to not migrate to NC.

    I don't know how I will cook all the chard. I don't think a bigger monkey is the answer although I cannot find a way to keep them little.

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  12. I realize that. Not my fault. Everybody gotta end up somewhere. We can't all live here.

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  13. I have never in my life seen a fire ant, and I think I like it that way. I heard they pack a nasty, nasty punch.

    so....did the stuff work?

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  14. Yikes! Owee!!! Ouch!!! What a nasty shock. Reminds me of those horrid chiggers back home in Nashville. They would always find the very worst places to bite, which of course would then itch like no tomorrow! Two great things about scenic PA: no fire ants, no chiggers. But we still have yellow jackets and poison ivy...

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  15. Hi ofb, it is enough to make want to move.

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  16. Sorry to hear about your fire ant troubles. I always seem to find them in our yard or is it they always seem to find me? Anyway. That is some impressive swiss chard. Oh and let's not get started on the poison ivy.

    Sam

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  17. Hi sam, thanks for stopping by. Fire ants are a curse in my garden.

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  18. BTW I got bite again today. Didn't work, crap.

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