The Red Imported Fire Ant (RIFA) or Solenopsis Invicta arrived on our fair shores in the 1930's in Mobile, Alabama from a cargo ship inbound from Argentina. Since then, they've spread across the South and have ruined many a picnic. Their bite is angry and it itches. We've spent hundreds of dollars treating them in our yard. They spread all over the place, making mounds of vicious little creatures that you don't want on your property.
You especially don't want them in your garden. They seek the high ground during rains and the garden has been built up over the years and is a favorite home for them. That presents a problem since we don't want to kill them with poison. That poison may kill the ants in the garden, but it will also kill the beneficial insects and soil microbes that we want to keep. Not only that, we don't want to eat vegetables laced with ant poison.
So we've found a safe alternative fire ant killer. We use Orange Oil, Agricultural Molasses and compost tea to make a safe and effective fire ant killer for the garden.
We wrote the recipe on the side of the gallon jug:
2 oz. orange oil (this is pretty expensive at $34 for 32 oz. container)2 oz. molasses
2 oz. compost tea
We follow the recipe exactly and fill with rainwater and shake up real good.
You use 1 gallon per mound. The directions are to pour it in the center of the mound and let it go down deep. You're attempting to kill the queen. Then you pour all around the mound, being careful not to let it run off.
Look what happens! The ants are killed and the eggs are ruined.
When you pass by the mound an hour later, there's not an ant stirring. We've obliterated the fire ants from the garden!
We will keep checking. One must be vigilant in combatting fire ants. They are relentless. The orange oil is the active ingredient (L-limonene) found in orange peel. It kills the ants by destroying the wax coating in the ant's respiratory system. Deadly to fire ants, but it has a nice benefit for humans - it smells great!
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