welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Monday, September 15, 2014

ants

ANTS
rule number one
if they aint bothering you dont worry about them
ants do have a reason for being on this earth
yes that even includes fire ants

my philosophy on fire ants
if they arent in my garden or where i step on them
and get bitten i dont worry about them

here at the country n the three ants that are a problem
are


the fire ant
when i start watering my garden well or if we get a bit
of rain they will pop up in various places in the garden
i usually step in them
or
put my hand on top of the mound when im tending the garden
only realize they are all over me when the leader says
ok are we all in place
in my shoes up my pants under my gloves under my collar
when i say go the leader says
lets all bite at the same time
one two three go
thats when it hits me hard that im covered with those little
varmints
and i usually shout &^%$)#@


then for some reason the sugar ants take a liking to our kitchen
they will go for months and months then
bam theres that long line of ants like a african safari
going up a hill or across a plain

the fire ants i control with old fashion grits sprinkled around
the mound and or
spinosid sprinkled around the mound
then
a solution of orange oil poured all over the area
that usually gets rid of them
granted they pop up somewhere else but thats ok
some folks sprinkled molasses over the area

then the sugar ants are controlled with
boric acid or roach pruff is one brand and jelly or jam or
honey
i take a lid from a jar
add a sprinkling of boric acid
add a tsp of home made jelly or preserves
mix it all up and leave it sitting around
they attack that lid so thickly that it looks black
after several days sometimes a week
the numbers seem to just go away

be patient on this treatment as they ants have to take it
back to the mound and feed it to the other ants there
eventually wiping out the colony

if i get tired of waiting i will spray a solution of orange oil
along their path or on top of them
they do not like orange oil and will try to avoid crossing
the orange oil line


then there are the red ants or harvester ants
they will take a portion of your yard and in a big circle
take over it
they are really harmful unless you stand on their mound area
too long
like they say ok if you arent going to move we will send an
army over and bite you
when they bite it hurts then it hurts worse then it hurts worse
almost like a bad arthritis spot on your joints

you dont need to get rid of them unless they are hurting you
or unless they have deformed a big circle of your yard

i scattered a large amount of seeds on my garden bed to establish
some buckwheat for a green manure crop
looking closely at these little guys they had moved a large
quantity of these seeds to their mound 15 yards away

so i dont treat the harvester ants since they aint bothering me
although if i had a dumb dog or had small kids i would
treat them

one treatment for these red ants is to sprinkle aspartame or
equal or nutra sweet around and on the mound
it seems to make them go away killing a lot of them
kinda scary huh since we some of us use this in our drinks

but the best reference for controlling all kinds of ants
is this link to the dirt doctor
its all organic and yes it works

click here

the organicgreen doctor

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