The Long Ant War

My friend back in California is still waging war with the invading ants, who apparently are of the sugartee--a militant sect of sugar eating ants that wage guerrilla warfare in a territorial battle for southern California. My friend was asking about aspartame, the sugar substitute in Equal, which kills ants when they eat it. Since I know he doesn't want anything even potentially dangerous around his kid, I shied him away from the faux sugar and pointed him toward some new tactical weapons in the looong war.

Once I threw some chunks of fat (we were battling the fatatee--a meat eating sect in So Cal) into the corners of my property, which I then blocked off with a thick standing infantry of diatomacious earth, after making sure that civilian children could not access the area. This classic misdirection move, followed by a pincer attack of fat bait laced with borax surrounded by diatomacious earth with howitzers of ant chalk laying down circles of indirect fire support in the gaps in our front line. 

They tried to flank us near the barbeque, but I sprayed them with cedar oil there and they beat an angry retreat into the neighbor's yard, where they were probably met with synthetic chemical warfare, which is against the Geneva conventions of insect warfare, to which we are a signatory.

Damn ants. Out there doing their job and taking hell for it...

Natural Pest Control Product

The question I get most often is how to get rid of bugs. The answer, for the garden at least, is to make sure your soil is healthy, which will make sure your plants are healthy (other factors do apply, like sun, temperature, water...), which will make the plants more able to resist bugs. Stressed out plants are bug magnets, since bugs are just doing their job by helping weed out the weaklings.

Occasionally, though, the bugs go crazy and attack everything. In that case, you need an organic and natural pest killer. Our friend Jackie (who makes great Hawaiian perfumes and body butters) recently started Natural Pest Free, which sells cedar-oil-based natural pest control products.

CEDAR OIL for more than a 1000 years is and has been a proven method of pest control that emphasizes simple, inexpensive, 100% organic practices that cause no harm to people or the environment. CEDAR OIL focuses on building a barrier of entry on the perimeter of your property, so bugs stay out of your yard, which means they stay out of your home. At Natural Pest Free we are dedicated to reducing the health risk and environmental impacts of pesticides and promoting organic alternatives to homeowners across America, one home at a time.

I'm a big fan of the natural barrier plan. I surround my garden with rows of clover, which rabbits and deer love. They'll stop and eat the clover and be happy with it, never making it deep into the garden where the expensive goodies are. Occasionally there's a deer (like our regular visitor, Scarface, shown here), who gets deep into the garden where he's learned to love pea shoots (who doesn't). In that case I use hot pepper waxes, another barrier--one that sends scarface running for the nearest water.

So, a cedar oil barrier makes sense for keeping the bugs out. I suggest using it sparingly, mostly when there's a serious infestation of something you really need to stop. Remember, when you're gardening, most bugs are beneficial, so you don't want to just keep all bugs out.

But in your home is another matter. This is a great product for use as an in-home pesticide.

...control of Head lice, Mosquitoes, Flies, Fleas, No-See-Um, Chiggers, Ticks, Chinch Bugs, Grub Worms, Mites, Mole Crickets, Earwigs, Slugs, Snails, Caterpillars, Beetles, June Bugs, May Bugs, Root Maggots, Army Worms, Weevils, Wire Worms, Ants and Termites.

Way to go Jackie! I'm proud to be affiliated with such a fine product!

Investing in an Organic Pest Control System

This summer, our slightly inclined backyard will become a terraced, raised bed, intensive organic garden, producing enough food to keep our family, and friends, in fresh produce as early as mid-spring, through the summer, and into next winter. The small area I managed to build up when we moved in in August will be quadrupled, or more if you count the pumpkin patch I'm planning. I'm already making arrangements to get a load of manure dumped right onto the snow, as I've seen the local corn farmers doing already.

Of course, this sudden transformation of yard will be a beacon to the local insect population, especially if any of my plants are weakened by cold weather, drought, or nutrient deficiency. I'll try to protect them, plant them at the right time, water if I have to, and make sure I've put enough manure and compost in the soil to keep them healthy. But if you grow it, the bugs will come try to eat it.

So, this winter, I've been investing in a locally integrated and organic pest control system: birds. I've spent about $10 so far on suet and seeds (avoiding thistle, which the finches love, but often pass whole, leading to more weeds to pull). The most numerous species by far are the intelligent state bird of Maine and Massachusetts, the Black-capped Chickadee. They are voracious insect eaters in summer, when I will stop providing suet for their protein source. The Chickadees especially love mosquitoes, which won't really hurt plants, but do hurt the gardener.

Birds are an elegant solution to pest control, but humans, of course, screw up the system. Pesticides are bad news for many reasons, not the least of which is that they harm bird populations. When I was young, I had an organic epiphany when I saw dead lady bugs that would have eaten the aphids we were trying to kill with the stuff that killed the lady bugs. Now I wonder why anyone would want to spray a synthetic, petroleum derived chemical that depletes bird populations in order to kill the bugs that the birds would eat: yet another interminable succession of absurdities.

Other birds that will provide organic pest control in our garden include the American Goldfinch, the slate-colored Juncos, the Blue Jays, the White-breasted Nuthatch, the Northern Cardinals, and various sparrows. I'll still put out some black oil sunflower seeds (maybe even plant some black oil sunflowers) to keep them all hanging around, but if they want some protein, they'll have to eat my bugs.