We don't have fire ants here in the UK, but we do have ants. I have found that one of the more effective treatments against them is plain old boiling water, applied to their nest in sufficient quantities. This also works well against certain garden weeds. It may not be a totally energy efficient way of dealing with them, but it means that no nasty chemicals are used and afterwards I have no worries about letting my young daughter run around in the garden. Besides, I don't actually _know_ how much energy is used in manufacturing the nasty chemical alternatives, it may well be more than is used in a kettle of boiling water.
I wouldn't underestimate the stress-relieving aspects of kicking the tops off the mounds - a little bit of stress relief (carefully applied) can improve your quality of life far more than the ants can degrade it. After all, removing ants is just one means of achieving the former, not an end in itself. In the same way, some people drive inefficient vehicles and degrade the environment in many other ways, because they believe it will enhance their quality of life. So enhancing quality of life through such 'unorthodox' means also reducing the pressure to degrade the environment. I personally remove dandelions from my lawn by hand for exactly this reason. Donald --- Kim & Garth Travis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I too live with fire ants, as I live in Texas and no, I don't use any > > pesticides. I do make the fire ants work for me, by chasing the > mounds > with the garden hose. This has really improved my top soil. Kicking > the > top of the mound works well too, especially in winter and is a great > stress > relief. That said, I don't want the little monsters in my home. > Fire ants > don't like cinnamon. Cinnamon sells at Sam's club for $3.18 for 22 > ounces > so it is not real expensive to use. Diatomaceous Earth also helps to > > control them. If an ant hill gets too close to the house and won't > move > away, 3 to 4 applications of urine from a male that eats meat will > kill the > hill completely. The early morning variety of urine is the most > effective. > > I have not heard of using cedar to control fire ants, does it work > well > except for the mess? I have a few applications that might work for > me > better than what I am using, such as the fire wood storage. Do you > just > run the cedar through a chipper shreddar then put down? > > Bright Blessings, > Kim > > > At 05:59 AM 10/8/2004, you wrote: > >Please suggest a way to control fire ants. We have not used > pesticides > >for years and continue to put Cedarcide (chopped us cedar around our > >doors to keep them at bay. This rarely lasts very long and is big > bulky > >mess for tracking into the building. Thanks for suggestions. > > > >Peggy > > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): > http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ > ===== -- 43 - slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything. ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
