[Dailydrool] Chemical-free ant control

[Anne Savidge]

The best non-toxic thing to kill ants is plain old boiling water. This is the method endorsed by the Texas A &M University's school of agriculture. (Of course, as an organic gardener, I don't use ANY forms of artificial chemical things to kill ants because all those things kill the good bugs, too)

Boil pots of water and pour them right on the mound. If the mound is in grass, you are not likely to kill it, and if it goes a little brown, it will come back very soon anyway. I've never killed either my Bermuda or my St. Augustine grass. You can reinforce the boiling water with an orange-oil drench if you want. If you can't find commercially-available orange oil, soak the peels from several oranges in a gallon of water for three or four days and then remove the peels and pour that on the anthills after the boiling water.

It may take more than one application of boiling water a couple of days apart to do it, but even with fire ants, the nastiest species of ants north of the Tropic of Cancer, boiling water works. 

Auntie Anne