Got Fire Ants?
In Florida, we have Fire Ants. No getting around it.
If you’re a gardener, this can cause a lot of problems. If you garden in containers, the ants will eventually find their way to them. Especially after a lot of rain like we’ve had for the past week. Fire ant hills have been popping up everywhere. They’re destroying my serenity and that makes me unhappy.
Using fire ant killer makes me unhappy too. It smells awful. It’s toxic.
Here’s the recipe:
- 3 oz Dawn Blue Soap
- 1.5 oz Orange Oil concentrate
- 1 gallon of water.
Use this method in the early morning for best results.
I used one gallon of the mixture gallon per mound with one exception: I had an enormous three-hill complex out back. I used three gallons of the Orange Oil Dawn mixture on that nightmare.
There was study done on it and I’ve linked to the results below. Here’s a snippet if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing:
Results and Discussion
At the 3, 7, and 12 day observations, there were significantly less active fire ant mounds in the Spectricide® and the combination of orange oil and Dawn® soap treated plots compared to the other treatments; also the Organocide™ treated plots had significantly less active fire ant mounds compared to the water controls (Table 2). At the 14, 25 and 30 day observations, Spectricide® had significantly less active fire ant mounds compared to the other treatments; the combination of orange oil and Dawn® soap had significantly less active fire ant mounds compared to the Organocide™ and water treatments; the Organocide™ had significantly less active fire ant mounds compared to the water control plots. Overall, the Spectricide® treated plots had significantly fewer active fire ant mounds compared to the other treatments. Both the Spectricide® and the combination of orange Oil and Dawn® soap had less active fire ant mounds compared to the other treatments throughout the study. Further tests should be conducted to confirm the recommendation of orange oil and Dawn® soap. The average daytime temperature throughout the study was 76°F with a total of 7 inches of rain.
