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Ants and Slate and Algae and Bleach and ...

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

>I have also heard that if you pour a cup of instant grits on the hill-that
the ants eat it and it blows up in their stomachs killing them.  I never have
tried it, our ants are only a nuisance after a heavy rain when they make their
way indoors.
Cindy
---------------------
*I have heard this.
Also about the aphid honey.  This is have read and seen.
There is a "sugar ant."  And a "grease ant."  I suspect they are the same, a
smaller ant.  Then, Carpenter ants.  And Leaf Ants.  Skipping the Army
Ants...

Note that some use leaf or wood pulp and 'honey' to compost their main crop...
funi.  Fungi want 70% moisture to grow, +/- a very narrow margin.  Hot water,
which boiling, will cool rapidly as it desends thru the soil strata, cools at
a rate equal to the diferences in soil temp and water and the mass of each, as
they pass.  To kill fungi, about 140F is required.  200 degree F water will
hit 130F when it displaces/encounters an equal weight of 70 F soil.  Soil
weighs about 2/3 of the water.  So I have to wonder how efficient this is on
ants that go deep.

I don't know if a paint fungicide would help, while leaving beneficial
bacteria.  I use road flares against pocket gophers, with great effectiveness,
as compared to the expensive gopher flares, from which I got little effect at
all.  Ant operate on smell.  Perhaps the sulphur is a bother.  Sulfa drugs...?
 Sulphur fertilizer may be enough to irritate them.  Some detect vibrations. 
Pavement pounders?  Soil tampers. a combo of these?  Bleach is a fungicide. 
But it does kill beneficial bacteris, tho compost would replace that.  Worms
cannot tolerate bleach at all.  With hot water, would be a thought. 10% mix.

Slate and a scrub brush and 10% bleach will help the algae problem.  Let it
set a few minutes.  It may back the grass up and inch, and the worms, well...
A few will die perhaps.  Use little, and don't rinse.  A garden sprayer CAN
apply it, but rinse it soon and well, or it will corrode.
Bill/SF

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