All the immediate neighbourhood gardens are infested every year with ants.
Apart from Nippon ant-powder (which can be unsightly and not particularly
effective) can anyone recommend a really good alternative for use on paths,
containers/pots, lawns and flower-beds.

I use COMET scrub powder, it kills one it gets on and stops them from
crossing it.

"Birkonian" wrote in
message k...
All the immediate neighbourhood gardens are infested every year with ants.
Apart from Nippon ant-powder (which can be unsightly and not particularly
effective) can anyone recommend a really good alternative for use on
paths,
containers/pots, lawns and flower-beds.

The hominy grits you buy at the grocery store will kill all
sorts of ants when they injest it. Pour some grits directly
on the ant pile. They all should disappear by the next day.

Seems to be safe for the garden and very cheap.

--
Jim Carlock
http://www.microcosmotalk.com/
Post replies to the newsgroup.

"Birkonian" wrote:
All the immediate neighbourhood gardens are infested every year with ants.
Apart from Nippon ant-powder (which can be unsightly and not particularly
effective) can anyone recommend a really good alternative for use on paths,
containers/pots, lawns and flower-beds.

Jim Carlock wrote:

The hominy grits you buy at the grocery store will kill all
sorts of ants when they injest it. Pour some grits directly
on the ant pile. They all should disappear by the next day.

Seems to be safe for the garden and very cheap.


Is this true??? My husband heard this and told me this and I've kept
telling him he is nuts.

I also had someone here in southern Alabama tell me to sprinkle iodized
table salt around my house to keep out fleas....

amy

Yes, it is true. I poured some really old grits onto a train of
ants and they disappeared for a couple days. Then the next
week they decided to put their hill in a very convenient spot
to pour the grits onto. I've not seen the ants since.

Then there was another set of large wood eating ants I found
eating an old rotten wood stump left from a chopped down
tree, and I poured the grits onto that stump and I haven't seen
ants there in a couple weeks now. It used to be filled with the
big kind of ant that gets bigger than a centimeter in length.

I don't know about the iodized salt.

I found the information about the grits at the following:
http://ms.essortment.com/pestcontrolgar_reor.htm

I've seen citrus oil commonly on that page and a couple other
places mentioned, to control ants as well as some other pests.

Garlic seems to be useful for certain things, although I don't
remember what. I typically find information by doing searches
on google, using "organic" as one of the keywords when looking
for information on pest control. I might have to read and go
through twenty sites but from that I am starting to get a pretty
good feel for things.

Iodized salt seems to be recommended at the following page
along with a whole bunch of other methods. I've heard skin-so-
soft from Avon in a 25%/75% mixture with water helps. And
citrus spray (oil) seems to be recommended as well.

http://www.tipztime.com/area/bugtipz/fleas.html

Also, soap (either shampoo or dish detergent) is supposed to
kill cockroaches. A friend across the street told me about the
soap a couple weeks ago but I haven't tried it. He indicated
that it kills a roach instantly.

Hope that helps.

--
Jim Carlock
http://www.microcosmotalk.com/
Post replies to the newsgroup.


"Amy D" wrote:

Jim Carlock wrote:

The hominy grits you buy at the grocery store will kill all
sorts of ants when they injest it. Pour some grits directly
on the ant pile. They all should disappear by the next day.

Seems to be safe for the garden and very cheap.


Is this true??? My husband heard this and told me this and I've kept
telling him he is nuts.

I also had someone here in southern Alabama tell me to sprinkle iodized
table salt around my house to keep out fleas....

amy

Jim Carlock wrote:

Yes, it is true. I poured some really old grits onto a train of
ants and they disappeared for a couple days. Then the next
week they decided to put their hill in a very convenient spot
to pour the grits onto. I've not seen the ants since.

Then there was another set of large wood eating ants I found
eating an old rotten wood stump left from a chopped down
tree, and I poured the grits onto that stump and I haven't seen
ants there in a couple weeks now. It used to be filled with the
big kind of ant that gets bigger than a centimeter in length.

I don't know about the iodized salt.

I found the information about the grits at the following:
http://ms.essortment.com/pestcontrolgar_reor.htm

I've seen citrus oil commonly on that page and a couple other
places mentioned, to control ants as well as some other pests.

Garlic seems to be useful for certain things, although I don't
remember what. I typically find information by doing searches
on google, using "organic" as one of the keywords when looking
for information on pest control. I might have to read and go
through twenty sites but from that I am starting to get a pretty
good feel for things.

Iodized salt seems to be recommended at the following page
along with a whole bunch of other methods. I've heard skin-so-
soft from Avon in a 25%/75% mixture with water helps. And
citrus spray (oil) seems to be recommended as well.

http://www.tipztime.com/area/bugtipz/fleas.html

Also, soap (either shampoo or dish detergent) is supposed to
kill cockroaches. A friend across the street told me about the
soap a couple weeks ago but I haven't tried it. He indicated
that it kills a roach instantly.

Hope that helps.


Thanks. I'll haul out the grits. I was afraid my neighbors would
think I was nuts! We're "newly" southern.

I hadn't checked out Skin So Soft -- my mom was a big Avon lady and we
used SSS for everything.....thanks for the link!

amy

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 00:01:35 -0500, Amy D
wrote:

Is this true??? My husband heard this and told me this and I've kept
telling him he is nuts.
No maam it's not true... do a search on grits and ants and it will
pull up research data that has never shown it to be effective. Put
enough stuff on ant beds and they will up and move giving the
appearance of them being killed out.

I also had someone here in southern Alabama tell me to sprinkle iodized
table salt around my house to keep out fleas....

table salt will be more toxic than most of the finished insecticide
sprays you may use. it will also create a dead zone for vegetation
and may leach to desirable plants near the home.



Lar. (to e-mail, get rid of the BUGS!!


It is said that the early bird gets the worm,
but it is the second mouse that gets the cheese.

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 14:27:18 GMT, Lar wrote:

table salt will be more toxic than most of the finished insecticide
sprays you may use.


Yes salt is toxic, but must you minimize pesticides?

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 14:27:18 GMT, Lar wrote:

No maam it's not true... do a search on grits and ants and it will
pull up research data that has never shown it to be effective. Put
enough stuff on ant beds and they will up and move giving the
appearance of them being killed out.


I recently read that argentinian ants will range over 200 feet from
their nest. That's a lot of room to move. Good point!

Every time I've had an ant infestation in my apartment I've used
Grants Kills Ants. Unlike other ant baits I've tried they just love
the stuff. And, after a few days they're GONE. You can find it at
garden centers and supermarkets. I just use one or two of them placed
on the ant line. Just be sure to keep out of reach of puppies, kitties
and toddlers because the stuff does contain arsenic. FWIW, I have two
cats and they *do not* think of the little stakes as toys and leave
them alone despite their habit of getting their little paws on every
little thing to play with.

Layne

On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 22:07:24 GMT, "Birkonian"
wrote:

All the immediate neighbourhood gardens are infested every year with ants.
Apart from Nippon ant-powder (which can be unsightly and not particularly
effective) can anyone recommend a really good alternative for use on paths,
containers/pots, lawns and flower-beds.

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 08:44:22 -0700, tomjasz
wrote:

table salt will be more toxic than most of the finished insecticide
sprays you may use.


Yes salt is toxic, but must you minimize pesticides?


In using the salt as described, it has now been turned into a
pesticide, just pointing out less toxic and more environmentally
friendy solution is all. Chemicals are chemicals, for some reason if
thought of as pesticides it now must be harsher than the many
chemicals we expose ourselves in our daily existance.


Lar. (to e-mail, get rid of the BUGS!!


It is said that the early bird gets the worm,
but it is the second mouse that gets the cheese.

I just KNEW that grits had to have a useful purpose on this earth, now
it looks like one has surfaced.

Grandpa John

Jim Carlock wrote:

The hominy grits you buy at the grocery store will kill all
sorts of ants when they injest it. Pour some grits directly
on the ant pile. They all should disappear by the next day.

Seems to be safe for the garden and very cheap.

"Jim Carlock" wrote in message . com...

Also, soap (either shampoo or dish detergent) is supposed to
kill cockroaches. A friend across the street told me about the
soap a couple weeks ago but I haven't tried it. He indicated
that it kills a roach instantly.

Sounds utterly ridiculous!

But I will give you a recipe guaranteed to work on roaches:
3 parts flour
1 part boric acid
1 part bacon grease
1 part minced onion
enough water to make a paste

Stir all ingredients together and roll into marble size balls. Place
anywhere the roaches can find them. Boric acid is deadly to roaches
but it is not toxic to children or animals.

Bob S.

On 5 Jul 2004 19:47:39 -0700, (Bob S.) wrote:

Boric acid is deadly to roaches
but it is not toxic to children or animals.

Though it is low in toxicity it will probably be more toxic than the
commonly used insecticides used for insect control. Usually 6-8
thousand people are seen a year for borate poisoning with a death a
year. 5 grams can kill a child and there is no known antidote for
borate poisoning. If a little one can get a pinch in their mouth it
will be a trip to the hospital.



Lar. (to e-mail, get rid of the BUGS!!


It is said that the early bird gets the worm,
but it is the second mouse that gets the cheese.

Here's something reported on another discussion group concerning boric acid
and ants:

I've heard two explanations: (1) The boric acid gets onto their feet,
they
groom themselves, and it causes scratches in their exoskeleton, and they
dehydrate, and (2) it acts as a stomach poison.

Roaches breathe through their feet. The boric acid is aspirated, and does
its damage by suffocation and destruction of pulmonary tissue. Or, so said
the Ortho rep when I worked at a local hardware store.

I sure as heck don't know! But I FINALLY got rid of a huge anthill in my
front yard- (After they killed a Red Delicious apple tree) by mixing borax
and sugar with a bit of water. Put it in cottage cheese containers with
holes cut along the top of the sides (boy, is that confusing?!) and partly
buried them in the anthill.

For about 10 days, I didn't think it had worked either. I'd tried
pyrethrum, rotenone and even Sevin over the past 1 1/2 years, without any
results. 3 weeks after setting those "traps" the anthill is empty and dead!
Finally- something that works, and relatively non toxic.

I also had my usual yearly invasion of ants in the kitchen, and setting
cottage cheese container tops with that mixture in them on the counters
completely eliminated them within 3 days.

They supposedly take the stuff back to the nest and it kills the queen as
well.

Olushola