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eco-friendly way to control ants
Could it have something to do with that parade of annoying little ants marching across your floor and up over your counter tops?

With Memorial Day arriving this weekend, if ants haven't already shown up in your kitchen or breakfast room, they probably will. These tips will help keep the pests at bay.

Ant Story Why are ants so hard to get rid of? When the little buggers find food, they leave an invisible (to us) but powerful chemical trail on the ground so the rest of their colony can follow. As many as half a million individual ants can live in a colony, so even if you kill the ants in your house, the hordes in the colony can still follow the trail to your door.

Prevent Breaking and Entering
Spraying alone won't do the trick. You might kill the ants you see, but not the ants that will surely follow them. To prevent ants from coming into your home in the first place:
� Repair holes in doors, screens, floor boards, and other points of entry.
� Create a sticky barrier that will either repel ants or trap them as they try to cross.
� Caulk cracks in doors and windows. Use petroleum jelly or glue as a temporary barrier.

Put Food and Water Away
� Sweep floors after meals.
� Don't leave open dishes of pet food on the floor.
�Keep trash cans covered.
� Store food in containers closed with rubber seals, as ants can enter screw top jars via connecting threads.
� If you compost, empty the compost bucket daily.

Control Ants That Do Get In
� Mop them up using a wet cloth or sponge.
� Spray using a mixture of one teaspoon of liquid soap in a bottle of water. Make sure to spray the trail they followed into the house, and as far outside the house as you can follow it.
� If you find an ant nest, flood it with water to force the ants to evacuate.

Kill the Colony
The only way to really prevent ants from coming back is to stop them at their source.
Diatomaceous earth: The sharp edges on this microscopic shell mixture will puncture the ant's body, but not before it tracks the stuff back to its nest and spreads it around to other ants.
Boric acid baits work in similar fashion. Ants eat some of the bait themselves, then pass the rest on to other members of the colony on their return to the nest.

Make your own ant bait: Dissolve a cup of sugar in two cups of boiling water. Cool. Add a tablespoon of 100 percent boric acid. Shake well. Punch holes in the tops (or sides) of small plastic containers or film cans. Place cotton balls or cut-up sponge pieces inside, then fill with bait and set the containers along problem ant trails, spilling a few drops on the trail. (Label the baits clearly as poison.) From: Tiny Game Hunting by University of California Press.

If you want to spray, here are some eco-friendly options:

BUGS 'R' DONE

Fertile Garden Bioganic Home & Garden Spray

Poison-Free Ant and Roach Spray from PlanetNatural
duct tape
A relentless stream of black ants spent one summer shimmying underneath the baseboard (and insulation and siding) between my back porch and breakfast room so they could munch on the crumbs left on my kitchen counter. I finally stopped them by duct taping the fine line between the baseboard and the floor.

Let us know what works for you, whether it's duct tape or the garden hose. We'd love to share your questions, suggestions and solutions with the rest of our community. Feel free to send your photo!
info@biggreen purse.com

By the way, thanks to Purse Alerts! subscriber RITA of Westmont, IL for suggesting this topic.


You can find more environmentally-friendly shopping ideas at the Shop Green Here pages of www.biggreenp urse.com

By the way, if you want to pass this information along to a friend, just click on the Forward button right below my signature.

Talk to you again soon,

Diane's Photo
Diane MacEachern
Big Green Purse

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