An organic fire ant control is made from worm castings tea, mixed with molassas and orange oil. I will be experimenting with this.
The idea is that the orange oil disolves the exoskeleton of the fire ant, the compost tea provides the microorganisms which will invade the bodies of the ant and the molassas feeds the microorganisms.
I will be staking out 100 sf sections of my field to expriment with this and will document the results.
I have been saving all of my bills for the past two years with the plans of finding a different method of doing away with them than sending my private information to the land fill.
I tried burning them but the wind carries the burning pieces of paper away and are a fire hazard. So I spent an hour today hand shredding about half of it into worm food. This will be an ongoing way to utilize junk mail and sensitive paperwork.
***UPDATE*** John and I stopped at a bait shop and purchased a dozen fishing worms for $4. The first box was all dead and rotten. The second had 1 dead worm but the rest were alive. this species is rather thick and short. Not a night crawler but somewhere between a red wiggler and a night crawler. I added them to the worm farm to see if they would survive. The label said they were from Canada! Why would people from TX ship worms from Canada!
2 comments:
Oooh, what about the glue and plastic inserts. The plastic is made of petroleum, of course. I bought a paper shredder and use the product to protect mailed items. Cheaper than bubble wrap, I find.
Anxious to hear about orange oil experiment. Do you have LOTS of fire ants. I 'met' some in Florida and they're horrible/vicious.
I removed all of the plastic and threw it away. The glue is non toxic. I have burned out one shredder and have found that it is just as easy to sit in my recliner and listen to podcasts online and shred paper by hand. No electrical usage and I get some arm excercise.
Sissy you have no idea how many I have. In 3 acres I probably have thousands of hills and each hill can have as many as 100 queens not to mention the number of workers!
But like the dvd Back Yard Food Production says, you don't want to rid yourself of all fire ants because they keep away cut ants, and from personal experience, they also keep away ticks.
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