Dr Garrett, I have used grapefruit rind (1 or 2) steeping in a gallon milk jug sitting on my back porch under the sun. I find a mound while I am mowing my grass and come back afterwards and pour the gallon into the mound, just as you did. By morning, they are gone. Since moving up to NW Arkansas, I don't have to deal with the fire ants, thankfully. Loved listening to your show for the 25yrs we lived in East TX.
This may not work for everyone, in fact on bigger mounds it doesn’t work because it won’t kill all of them, but for small mounds, I use baking soda and vinegar. You take the end of a broom or mop and stick it as far down into the hole, pour the entire contents of baking soda in the hole and around it. Pour the vinegar in the hole slowly and the chemical reaction will suffocate them. It doesn’t kill or harm your yard and is natural. If you have some brown spotting it will clear up with the next rain or watering.
Just tried this after trying corn meal and sugar and several applications of boiling water on 3 separate (stubborn hills) and this worked in MINUTES!! Thank you so much for sharing a safe and very effective way to control fire ants! My little one's will thank you!
Hey Doc. Great video Sir. Thx. What I did about a month ago to several mounds about half the size that big one one you destroyed, was I poured about a few quarts of STRAIGHT isopropyl alcohol ("fuel") directly down into the center of each of the 3 mounds. In seconds they were coming out choking and stumbling around all discombobulated. The next day those mounds were gone after the rain. They are just flat dirt patches there now. I should note that they were built just along side the inner concrete wall of a CURB on the perimeter of a parking lot with grass all around the outer edge of the lot. The treeline to the woods is about 15ft from the curb. So 15ft of grass between the high curb containing the grass and the wooded treeline. Every year about this time in March as the weather begins to warm, they start popping up. It's actually not my property. It's inside of a large gas station convenience store with a Dunkin Donuts and a other fast food chain. But the stupid of grass is a popular area for people to walk their dogs in and I could just see a dog sniffing that and being attacked by fire ants. So I just happened to have a gallon can of the isopropyl alcohol in the back of my truck. I use it to remove old glue residue from vinyl decals in my sign business. It is REALLY STRONG STUFF! So I figured drenching the mound with it would seep into the dirt on a hot day and the fumes alone (which last a long time) would choke them out. And it SURE DID. No chance of harming the grass around it as they were literally right up against the curb on the very outer edge of the grass line. I reckon they were tunneling away from. The treeline and hit the concrete curb underground and just came straight up and ended it there with mounds. Got 'em. The grass is already thick and lush overtop the spots where those former mounds were. I got to them early! They were only about 8-10" in diameter. About 3 or 4 mounds spaced out in a line along the curb about 2ft apart. Guess they hit the curb and couldn't go any further so the turned upwards and built their mounds.
well something he said in the beginning was that he usually makes the solution away from the mound because all the banging and noise alerts the ants but for the purpose of explaining the procedure he did it all right there
Easiest method for ants is to cover the mound and about 3 inches around it with cinnamon. The ants can't leave and bring back food to the queen so she and all the others die. Cinnamon is a desiccant, so when they walk through it, the powder dehydrates their insides and they basically become ant jerky! Since they cannot leave, they cannot move the queen and start a new ant hill. So far the only method I have tried that actually works, and they are everywhere here in Texas ;-)
+Kristin Childs If cinnamon works that good, then diatomaceous earth would probably work even better, and it's cheaper for the amount you get. Diatomaceous earth is a very strong dessicant, so much so that it made my feet uncomfortable when I stepped on it as it dried them out. A friend of mine used that stuff for bedbug control and it worked great.
I was always partial to the "boil a kettle of water, poke 5 or 6 deep holes in the mound with a broomstick and poor the boiling water down the holes" method. (Also in Texas)
Cinnamon confuses ants too, by disturbing their feromone communication, they really wont cross it or even touch it, I saved a few of my potted plants by using cinnamon only.
I have a question for you. What is the best way to take care of blossom end rot? I'm having to grow my tomatoes in pots and it's very easy to lose what I've put in the top of the pot.
Dry Ice crystals on the mound with a bucket on top. CO2 will seep into the soil and suffocate the colony. The bucket is to keep the wind from blowing the CO2 away.
I've been doing this for years. My mix is 1/4 the strength of his. I, too, worry about the effect on plants, but it seems to be completely safe for the plants where my mounds are. They are mostly in the St Augustine, but the grass fills right back in like there were never any ants there. Garrett has another video where he sprays plants with the same orange oil mixture, so "it must be okay," right ;-)
I live on England and i dont know if they are called fire ants or what but they are bright orange in colour and seem to be indestructible! The lotions and potions for black ants certainly do not work on this type. So, i am going to try this method and see what happens. 👍
Just looked up the price of the Garrett Juice($30.00 qt)and orange oil($30.00qt)= total over $60.00.. Using 6 oz of Garrett juice as directed,you would be paying $60 to treat about 5 mounds.There has to be a better way,at least cheaper one.
Yes orange oil is expensive too. I save this for my vegie patch and use fipronil on the rest of our property. Fipronil 100g/litre concentrate, use 1/2 ml per liter in a sprayer or watering can, try to get it right down inside like he is doing. Works very well and is about 10 cents Aussie per liter.
I live in the South where we have plenty of fire ants. I was unfamiliar with them. So, I started thinking how to get rid of them and I came to my very own recipe. I boiled a big pot of water and poured it on the hill. The next day I pushed the hill apart and poured another pot of boiling water in the hill. I want you to know, that I have never seen any fire ants in this spot..... Ho about THAT?.
I wish I could understand the very first thing he said in the first 10 seconds, it sounds like he said put out a jar of molasses? It sounds like he said, a "draw of molasses". How much molasses is he talking about?
Boy, I certainly hope this works. Even hard as our chirt like soil is, these menaces are relentless. I'm finding they like to get near the edge of concrete which I suppose allows them to have cover from rain and other disturbances - my lawn mower wheels, I go back and forth over them until they are completely caved in. I have a zero turn and it makes it much easier to crush the mound. I loathe these creatures.
That’s interesting that you say that they are on the edge of concrete, I had never seen them before and today I found a bunch of small mounds just at the edge of my concrete patio. They literally built them in a few hours because I just hosed that area down this afternoon. I poured this stuff on them and there was no more movement, dead within minutes. 🎉
I wonder if this, or a modification will work for yellow jacket ground nest. I have several nests in the ground this time of year and they are violent little creatures.
Do you have any recommendations for tiny fire ants in Hawaii? I don’t think they have visible mounds. They get blown in by the wind, often, and are in the tall grasses and trees and plants.
If you can't find them you can't get rid of them. So for your ants, when it rains you don't see a huge mound build up? That mound in the video was formed following a rainstorm. In a few days that would settle back down and be much harder to find.
Is this safe for pets? I have fire ants in my backyard and they keep attacking my poor dog. But, they must all be underground. I dont have an mounds. I do, however have mounds all over my property.
If you have another ant mound maybe you could video the beginning pour through the final death zoomed in. I have two mounds next to the asparagus and want to kill the ants not the plants. 🙂🐜🍊😵. Update: Used this mix and it works wonderfully! And smells great. Plants are fine and still growing. THANKS!
He did say that. The dry molasses product is made by pouring 5 pounds of wet molasses into 45 pounds of rice hulls. You get the same effect with less hassle by spraying with the molasses at 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Fire ants are protein type ants and really hate sugar, so by spraying the yard with sugar, they just don't like it. They may leave...or not. If you were religious about spraying the molasses, I suspect you would drive the fire ants away.
What amazes me is this video has 135k views which tells you the frustration everyone has trying to find a way to kill fire ants. I have tried every store bought product out there from cheap to high priced,all the DYI home remedies more than I can count and none of them are sure fire solutions. And even fewer are practical if you have acreage rather than a small yard.Fire ants are a major problem in the south--why can't our government spend research dollars to find a practical solution instead of pissing money away on"green energy" self-driving cars and going to Mars?
"None of [the DIY home remedies] are sure fire solutions." Try the DIY remedy in the video and see if you want to modify that statement. I believe that recipe is actually overkill. I've been using a watered down version for many years and it works every time. For acreage you can find orange oil at about $22 per quart, which is better than what was illustrated in the video. If you buy by the gallon, pail, or drum, the price goes down and down; but let's use these prices. Bulk molasses is almost free (dollar or two per gallon) at your local co-op. I would put 16 ounces of orange oil and 16 ounces of molasses into a 25 gallon ag sprayer mounted on the back of a JD Gator. This is about 1/4 the amount used in the video, but it seems to work. Drive up to the mound and use a high flow wand to inject a gallon into each mound. The mix costs about $11 and treats 25 mounds for about $0.44 per mound plus your time. We don't need any government or university studies to fix this problem.
I've thought the same thing living in E. Texas. Fire ants began migrating here in the early sixties. I can remember as a child being able to camp out on the ground in our hay fields without the worry of ants attacking you back then. Now, you can not even walk barefooted in a treated yard without one biting you. But hey, lets send billions of dollars to China, Russia and other countries that hate us while farms, gardens and such are getting destroyed by this South American pest invades our country one hill at a time. NOTICE to City folks..... they will get in your homes too and they don't care if your a conservative, liberal, Democrat or Republican. We fight them continuously in Texas to just keep them out of our houses. PS... enough bites can kill a baby or even an adult that is allergic to their venom. Maybe we should all go to Mars and get away from the dang fire ants....
I can reseed for more grass, but these ants have to go! It's war... raw orange oil a must! I can't even use my front door because they made mounds through the bricks of my steps. Game On!
I have successfully killed mound after mound for years using 1/4 the amount of orange oil he used. When I pour my mix on, the ants do swarm out, but they are already jittery. It is very satisfying to watch them jitter around for 20 seconds and then stop. I suspect that at the strength he used, the ants die so fast they don't have a chance to swarm.
@@johnwhitaker8223 I pour 1 tablespoon of straight orange oil into a gallon of water along with a tablespoon of shampoo to help it stick to the ants. Then I drench the mound. Sometimes it helps to have a second gallon handy for two reasons. One is you might not get them all if it is a large mound. The second is that you may discover a smaller, satellite, mound located 5 feet away where the colony survives even after the big mound is killed.
Two questions, (1) how quickly does this kill the nest and (2) why didn't the ants start swarming out of the mound? I am trying this on a nest and when I started pouring the fluid they came out big-time.
Just spray wet molasses at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. It's a bit of hassle to spray, but the dried molasses can be a huge mess. Once you open the bag, you need to use the entire bag or within a week you'll have a brick of dried molasses in the bag.
@@dchall8 what kind of success are you seeing with using the liquid molasses at this rate? Where are you applying it? Pasture, garden, yard, etc…. Any tips? Thank you!
@@mattmccoy7364 Hi Matt. I've gone to a modified version of what Howard did in the video. If you just use water instead of compost tea, it works fine. You can add the molasses or not. But also I tried using paint thinner and a dash of shampoo instead of orange oil and that worked fine, too. Three years ago, back when I commented, I was living in the country and had fire ants everywhere. I've moved back to San Antonio and haven't seen any in a year, but I don't kid myself that they won't spring up at any time. I think it's been too dry this year.
Hot water (not dangerously-hot, please!) works wonders. It collapses their tunnels, and sets them back quite a lot (there will be survivors, which will establish new colonies, but then there are new colonies being established all the time, anyway...). And you can simply use a pressure washer to dig out the mounds a bit (goggles and rainwear are not a bad idea...). Messy, and not completely effective, but if you're on top of a megacolony, then it should reduce their numbers and DESTROY THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE. And if you should have a cold snap, that's the time to mount a major offensive against the ants, since they'll be cold and sluggish.
All you have to do is get a shell pest strip, used to hang up to kill flying insects, and cut a 1/2 inch square, and place the 1/2 inch piece right at the ant hill's hole, so every ant that goes in and out of that hole craws across that cube and dies, and then go pick it up and put it on another anthill hole, that tiny piece placed at the hole entrance will kill every ant in the that hill, you will be amazed....And you can reuse each piece many times..... Reply
Tried it just as described, it worked immediately! Within a few minutes, there was no more movement! Thank you for this safe and effective solution. @Dirt Doctor do you know if it is safe for animals to be around it? I have small dogs. And I feed a lot of wild birds.
He did explain that the mixture you are mentioning will burn your grass. Ants already destroy the grass and plants enough. why get rid of them just to do the same thing they are doing?
My pasture is full of fire ant mounds. One is probably knee high and about 4 feet around. There are several that look like they branch off of the big one. I was buying fire ant killer for years but they have gotten away from us. I am going to try diatomaceous earth.
Carol, if you live in a place that has something approximating winter, wait until dusk, during a cold snap. When it's too cold for the ants to move (or to bite you), DIG-OUT THE BED. For a pasture, and a well-entrenched megacolony like that, if you have any earth-moving equipment, it would not be overkill to use it for that purpose. You want to freeze the ant babies/eggs and queens, while there's a whole night of freezing temperatures (so they can't be moved to a new location, and will simply freeze). We fill the holes with our nastiest compost slush (full of anaerobic bacteria and their natural toxins, which, according to our family's theory, should make any lingering or returning ants very sick). Our hope is that the compost slush will change the smell of the area, so that any survivors will not recognize it. Leave the hole open, overnight, which allows cold air to reach depths which would normally have a stable temperature. We pour hot water into the holes we've dug on the grounds around our home, since that collapses the tunnels. The water doesn't need to be dangerously hot. And it's satisfying to shovel ant mounds into big buckets of hot water, of course (straight-from-the-tap-hot - not dangerously hot). But for a pasture, I think that simply digging-out during freezing weather should set them back quite a lot.
I understood him, but then again I"m from Texas. Just don't put me in a group of people from the Northeast, like New Hampshire. I work remotely with people in that state sometimes and their accent is cringe-worthy. They add letters to words, for example: "drawing" is "draw-ring".
This guy is “the dirt doctor.” He has a swell hat and a startched shirt to work in the grass killing ants. I would listen to him. This orange oil looks like u can use it for so many things.
Weird, huh? I noticed that, too. I use a diluted mix from what Garrett uses, and I do see them swarm up and out. That lasts for about 20 seconds and then all motion stops. I suspect that his concentrated recipe kills them much faster so you never see them swarm out. But try it. It really does work.
If you can move the containers, do that. FIRST, prep the mix and have it ready to go. Make an extra gallon. Then move the container. The same thing goes for doing this around ornamental rocks or pavers used in the garden. Make the juice first and then move the rocks. They will swarm fast when you move the pot or rocks, so maybe get a second set of hands involved. If the ants are inside the container, that's different. They are likely entering through the drain hole in the bottom of the container. In that case it would be best to put the mix into a bin (Rubbermaid?) and place the container into the mix so it goes into the pot at the bottom. This should cause the ants to swarm out the top, so be ready with a gallon to catch the runners. ...although, if the bin is big enough, they still cannot get out of the bin even if they swarm over and out of the container. Heh, heh! Fire ant can float in mass on fresh water, but this mixture is pretty much instant death. They don't float on this stuff.
You know, we moved out to our farm in 1971, and ever since then, there has been one fire ant colony on the far end of the farm. They never bothered anybody. My sister built a house over there, and I ended up buying that house, and I've lived with them in my front yard for probably 20 years now. They never bother anybody. I tried to destroy them, just because they were not indigeneous to this area, and they just moved thier home 40 feet. They don't expand, they don't take over, and I've never been bitten by one. I mean, I've walked across their home, but never stood on it. Now, I did have the big black European ants move into my trailer walls to escape the rain, and my trailer is high up off the ground. Those little buggers were aggravating. I never got bit by them either, but they were more intrusive than the fire ants. The fire ants never bothered anybody. The ants that do bite you where ever you go all the time are those tiny black ones. Over the last 50 years, my feet have been bitten all to hell by those evil little buggers. So if you want an evil ant to point the finger at, point it at those little black ants, the ones that ruin picnics. Those suckers get all over your food, they find crumbs, they get in your house, they bite your feet, they are just every where. In short, fire ants have an undeserved reputation... it's the little black ants that deserve it.
@@janewalker1731 If you don't bother them, they don't bother you. It's those small european black wood ants that get into your house, into your wood working, nest inside your walls, hunt for food crumbs on your floor and then call in the army when they find some... that cause all the trouble. I've got fire ant nests in my front yard, and I have never once seen one red ant inside my house. I've seen them on my motorcycle seat outside a few rare times exploring, and brushed them off, but that was it.
Fire Ants are dangerous for me. When I get bite, it causes a reaction. If fire ant mounts come in my yard, I will try to destroy them. Right now, I have an infestation of them. Since we had so much rain this pass week, I have 13 mounts in my small yard. Yikes! I have to do something! I am having trouble finding the orange oil in our area.
We don't have fire ants but we have and problem. An old man on RUclips said take a shovel and scoop off the top of the mound and set it on top of another Mound and both ants will fight to the death! so I tried it, I took an ant hill and shoveled it over on top of another one and the Ants fought to to the death!
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Dr Garrett, I have used grapefruit rind (1 or 2) steeping in a gallon milk jug sitting on my back porch under the sun. I find a mound while I am mowing my grass and come back afterwards and pour the gallon into the mound, just as you did. By morning, they are gone. Since moving up to NW Arkansas, I don't have to deal with the fire ants, thankfully. Loved listening to your show for the 25yrs we lived in East TX.
This may not work for everyone, in fact on bigger mounds it doesn’t work because it won’t kill all of them, but for small mounds, I use baking soda and vinegar. You take the end of a broom or mop and stick it as far down into the hole, pour the entire contents of baking soda in the hole and around it. Pour the vinegar in the hole slowly and the chemical reaction will suffocate them. It doesn’t kill or harm your yard and is natural. If you have some brown spotting it will clear up with the next rain or watering.
The Texas Boys sent me to you! Thank you so much!! I'm binge watching your channel and loving it!!
Just tried this after trying corn meal and sugar and several applications of boiling water on 3 separate (stubborn hills) and this worked in MINUTES!! Thank you so much for sharing a safe and very effective way to control fire ants! My little one's will thank you!
Libby Roberts Glad it worked for you! Thanks for watching.
Hey Doc. Great video Sir. Thx. What I did about a month ago to several mounds about half the size that big one one you destroyed, was I poured about a few quarts of STRAIGHT isopropyl alcohol ("fuel") directly down into the center of each of the 3 mounds. In seconds they were coming out choking and stumbling around all discombobulated. The next day those mounds were gone after the rain. They are just flat dirt patches there now.
I should note that they were built just along side the inner concrete wall of a CURB on the perimeter of a parking lot with grass all around the outer edge of the lot. The treeline to the woods is about 15ft from the curb. So 15ft of grass between the high curb containing the grass and the wooded treeline. Every year about this time in March as the weather begins to warm, they start popping up.
It's actually not my property. It's inside of a large gas station convenience store with a Dunkin Donuts and a other fast food chain. But the stupid of grass is a popular area for people to walk their dogs in and I could just see a dog sniffing that and being attacked by fire ants.
So I just happened to have a gallon can of the isopropyl alcohol in the back of my truck. I use it to remove old glue residue from vinyl decals in my sign business. It is REALLY STRONG STUFF!
So I figured drenching the mound with it would seep into the dirt on a hot day and the fumes alone (which last a long time) would choke them out. And it SURE DID. No chance of harming the grass around it as they were literally right up against the curb on the very outer edge of the grass line. I reckon they were tunneling away from. The treeline and hit the concrete curb underground and just came straight up and ended it there with mounds.
Got 'em. The grass is already thick and lush overtop the spots where those former mounds were. I got to them early! They were only about 8-10" in diameter. About 3 or 4 mounds spaced out in a line along the curb about 2ft apart. Guess they hit the curb and couldn't go any further so the turned upwards and built their mounds.
Oh, btw....I'm in central ("middle") Tennessee for the record. About 30 miles west of Nashville. Pretty rural out here.
well something he said in the beginning was that he usually makes the solution away from the mound because all the banging and noise alerts the ants but for the purpose of explaining the procedure he did it all right there
Greetings from the Calif high desert on the SAF. GOD BLESS.
This dude sounds like Dr. Phil if Dr. Phil was actually intelligent.
He really does! LOL
They are both Texans. That's how we talk here. Howard Garrett, the Dirt Doctor, is my pick over Dr. Phil!
Imagine if he got a bit of Oprah’s money/influence
@@miketrujillo874 the world would be a better place. he'd def do better with that money/influence than Dr Phil did. haha
Thank you! I love in Florida and fire ants are the bane of my existence!!! This is great!
Easiest method for ants is to cover the mound and about 3 inches around it with cinnamon. The ants can't leave and bring back food to the queen so she and all the others die. Cinnamon is a desiccant, so when they walk through it, the powder dehydrates their insides and they basically become ant jerky! Since they cannot leave, they cannot move the queen and start a new ant hill. So far the only method I have tried that actually works, and they are everywhere here in Texas ;-)
+Kristin Childs If cinnamon works that good, then diatomaceous earth would probably work even better, and it's cheaper for the amount you get. Diatomaceous earth is a very strong dessicant, so much so that it made my feet uncomfortable when I stepped on it as it dried them out. A friend of mine used that stuff for bedbug control and it worked great.
I was always partial to the "boil a kettle of water, poke 5 or 6 deep holes in the mound with a broomstick and poor the boiling water down the holes" method. (Also in Texas)
Ants can dig below and travel under the cinnamon?
ROTFLMFFAO!! yea and sugar pills cure diabetes to.. lmao!
Cinnamon confuses ants too, by disturbing their feromone communication, they really wont cross it or even touch it, I saved a few of my potted plants by using cinnamon only.
Thanks for all your help!
I have a question for you. What is the best way to take care of blossom end rot? I'm having to grow my tomatoes in pots and it's very easy to lose what I've put in the top of the pot.
Going to try this!!! There are several mounds around my deck. In Georgia
Always add the chemicals to the water , not water to chems. Safety first.
True.
Dry Ice crystals on the mound with a bucket on top. CO2 will seep into the soil and suffocate the colony. The bucket is to keep the wind from blowing the CO2 away.
Can I use this in my raised vegetable garden?
Thank you so much! I do have a question. Does the orange oil have a negative affect on the plants, if so how long does it last?
I've been doing this for years. My mix is 1/4 the strength of his. I, too, worry about the effect on plants, but it seems to be completely safe for the plants where my mounds are. They are mostly in the St Augustine, but the grass fills right back in like there were never any ants there. Garrett has another video where he sprays plants with the same orange oil mixture, so "it must be okay," right ;-)
I live on England and i dont know if they are called fire ants or what but they are bright orange in colour and seem to be indestructible! The lotions and potions for black ants certainly do not work on this type.
So, i am going to try this method and see what happens. 👍
I just watched this video to see ants die.
Very good natural fire ant control video!
Just looked up the price of the Garrett Juice($30.00 qt)and orange oil($30.00qt)= total over $60.00.. Using 6 oz of Garrett juice as directed,you would be paying $60 to treat about 5 mounds.There has to be a better way,at least cheaper one.
He gives u the recipe to make your own, slim. See his website.
Yes orange oil is expensive too. I save this for my vegie patch and use fipronil on the rest of our property. Fipronil 100g/litre concentrate, use 1/2 ml per liter in a sprayer or watering can, try to get it right down inside like he is doing. Works very well and is about 10 cents Aussie per liter.
I live in the South where we have plenty of fire ants. I was unfamiliar with them. So, I started thinking how to get rid of them and I came to my very own recipe. I boiled a big pot of water and poured it on the hill. The next day I pushed the hill apart and poured another pot of boiling water in the hill. I want you to know, that I have never seen any fire ants in this spot..... Ho about THAT?.
Great video! I live in NC and lately the fire ants have been a problem. I'm going to try thus. Now subscribed
I wish I could understand the very first thing he said in the first 10 seconds, it sounds like he said put out a jar of molasses? It sounds like he said, a "draw of molasses". How much molasses is he talking about?
Dry molasses
Go to his website, it has the recipe.
Boy, I certainly hope this works. Even hard as our chirt like soil is, these menaces are relentless. I'm finding they like to get near the edge of concrete which I suppose allows them to have cover from rain and other disturbances - my lawn mower wheels, I go back and forth over them until they are completely caved in. I have a zero turn and it makes it much easier to crush the mound. I loathe these creatures.
That’s interesting that you say that they are on the edge of concrete, I had never seen them before and today I found a bunch of small mounds just at the edge of my concrete patio. They literally built them in a few hours because I just hosed that area down this afternoon. I poured this stuff on them and there was no more movement, dead within minutes. 🎉
Thank you for taking the Time I will Definitely try it.
Can it be used on vegetable raised beds with seedling in it?
I wonder if this, or a modification will work for yellow jacket ground nest. I have several nests in the ground this time of year and they are violent little creatures.
Do you have any recommendations for tiny fire ants in Hawaii? I don’t think they have visible mounds. They get blown in by the wind, often, and are in the tall grasses and trees and plants.
If you can't find them you can't get rid of them. So for your ants, when it rains you don't see a huge mound build up? That mound in the video was formed following a rainstorm. In a few days that would settle back down and be much harder to find.
Is this safe for pets? I have fire ants in my backyard and they keep attacking my poor dog. But, they must all be underground. I dont have an mounds. I do, however have mounds all over my property.
Hello Doc! Where did you purchase your watering can? I Would like to purchase one. Thank you for all of the great advice/tips!
Mack Pritchard Try Tractor Supply everywhere or Lehman's in Ohio.
I have fire ants moving into the roots of my lemon trees will this work for that?
Will dry molasses on whole property attract wild pigs in east Texas?
If you have another ant mound maybe you could video the beginning pour through the final death zoomed in. I have two mounds next to the asparagus and want to kill the ants not the plants. 🙂🐜🍊😵. Update: Used this mix and it works wonderfully! And smells great. Plants are fine and still growing. THANKS!
And is this safe for Pets also?
NicoleKristine : Yes. All the ingredients are naturally comparable with soil ph. The orange oil is deadly to the ants outer body.
is this safe in yards with free ranging chickens and dogs?
can alaska fish liquid be used on mounds?
Did you say spread dry molasses all over the property?
He did say that. The dry molasses product is made by pouring 5 pounds of wet molasses into 45 pounds of rice hulls. You get the same effect with less hassle by spraying with the molasses at 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Fire ants are protein type ants and really hate sugar, so by spraying the yard with sugar, they just don't like it. They may leave...or not. If you were religious about spraying the molasses, I suspect you would drive the fire ants away.
Save the juice and pour boiling water on them the same way works for me.
What amazes me is this video has 135k views which tells you the frustration everyone has trying to find a way to kill fire ants. I have tried every store bought product out there from cheap to high priced,all the DYI home remedies more than I can count and none of them are sure fire solutions. And even fewer are practical if you have acreage rather than a small yard.Fire ants are a major problem in the south--why can't our government spend research dollars to find a practical solution instead of pissing money away on"green energy" self-driving cars and going to Mars?
Taxation is theft. Do it yourself.
"None of [the DIY home remedies] are sure fire solutions."
Try the DIY remedy in the video and see if you want to modify that statement. I believe that recipe is actually overkill. I've been using a watered down version for many years and it works every time.
For acreage you can find orange oil at about $22 per quart, which is better than what was illustrated in the video. If you buy by the gallon, pail, or drum, the price goes down and down; but let's use these prices. Bulk molasses is almost free (dollar or two per gallon) at your local co-op. I would put 16 ounces of orange oil and 16 ounces of molasses into a 25 gallon ag sprayer mounted on the back of a JD Gator. This is about 1/4 the amount used in the video, but it seems to work. Drive up to the mound and use a high flow wand to inject a gallon into each mound. The mix costs about $11 and treats 25 mounds for about $0.44 per mound plus your time. We don't need any government or university studies to fix this problem.
True that!!!
I've thought the same thing living in E. Texas. Fire ants began migrating here in the early sixties. I can remember as a child being able to camp out on the ground in our hay fields without the worry of ants attacking you back then. Now, you can not even walk barefooted in a treated yard without one biting you. But hey, lets send billions of dollars to China, Russia and other countries that hate us while farms, gardens and such are getting destroyed by this South American pest invades our country one hill at a time. NOTICE to City folks..... they will get in your homes too and they don't care if your a conservative, liberal, Democrat or Republican. We fight them continuously in Texas to just keep them out of our houses. PS... enough bites can kill a baby or even an adult that is allergic to their venom. Maybe we should all go to Mars and get away from the dang fire ants....
I can reseed for more grass, but these ants have to go! It's war... raw orange oil a must! I can't even use my front door because they made mounds through the bricks of my steps. Game On!
Is Garrett juice named after you?
We have fire ants in our garden. Is this safe to use in a garden along side watermelon?
How come there are no fire ants swarming out of the mound when the water is poured into the top?
I have successfully killed mound after mound for years using 1/4 the amount of orange oil he used. When I pour my mix on, the ants do swarm out, but they are already jittery. It is very satisfying to watch them jitter around for 20 seconds and then stop. I suspect that at the strength he used, the ants die so fast they don't have a chance to swarm.
@@dchall8 do you pour straight orange oil?
@@johnwhitaker8223 I pour 1 tablespoon of straight orange oil into a gallon of water along with a tablespoon of shampoo to help it stick to the ants. Then I drench the mound. Sometimes it helps to have a second gallon handy for two reasons. One is you might not get them all if it is a large mound. The second is that you may discover a smaller, satellite, mound located 5 feet away where the colony survives even after the big mound is killed.
Two questions, (1) how quickly does this kill the nest and (2) why didn't the ants start swarming out of the mound? I am trying this on a nest and when I started pouring the fluid they came out big-time.
It might be a fake mound for the sake of doing a video?
Probably because of the temperature. Cold, rainy weather they stay down.
Can't find any dried molasses in Conroe. Where can I buy the dried molasses? Thank you!
Feed stores sell it
Just spray wet molasses at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. It's a bit of hassle to spray, but the dried molasses can be a huge mess. Once you open the bag, you need to use the entire bag or within a week you'll have a brick of dried molasses in the bag.
@@dchall8 what kind of success are you seeing with using the liquid molasses at this rate? Where are you applying it? Pasture, garden, yard, etc…. Any tips? Thank you!
@@mattmccoy7364 Hi Matt. I've gone to a modified version of what Howard did in the video. If you just use water instead of compost tea, it works fine. You can add the molasses or not. But also I tried using paint thinner and a dash of shampoo instead of orange oil and that worked fine, too. Three years ago, back when I commented, I was living in the country and had fire ants everywhere. I've moved back to San Antonio and haven't seen any in a year, but I don't kid myself that they won't spring up at any time. I think it's been too dry this year.
Thanks!
As Fred Astaire once said--Let's face the music and ants.
Great video
Just sprinkle Spenda or NutraSweet on the hill.
I think it has to be aspartame.
I have to figure something out!! Its like my house was built on a mega mound of fire ants!! They are everywhere!!! And I'm in Florida
I feel your frustration
@@tracys.154 looking for a solution myself, also in FL, will try citrus oil.. they must go
Same but here in Texas. Those damn fire ants are everywhere in my yard. Take on mound down 2 to 3 others ones pop up.
Hot water (not dangerously-hot, please!) works wonders. It collapses their tunnels, and sets them back quite a lot (there will be survivors, which will establish new colonies, but then there are new colonies being established all the time, anyway...). And you can simply use a pressure washer to dig out the mounds a bit (goggles and rainwear are not a bad idea...). Messy, and not completely effective, but if you're on top of a megacolony, then it should reduce their numbers and DESTROY THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE. And if you should have a cold snap, that's the time to mount a major offensive against the ants, since they'll be cold and sluggish.
Just make sure you are not cooking any of your plant roots
Might I use Citrasolv in lieu of orange oil?
I'm not sure, it's the citric acid that attacks the ant's skeleton
undrcvrmn1
Okay. Thank you.
What is Garrett juice?
It’s a product you find at a Garden Center or Nursery with the other liquid fertilizers. contains seaweed, molasses, compost tea, etc.
I used orange oil and water on just the normal little black ants and all it done was make them go into a frenzy and they made more nests 😧
I have discovered a huge mound amidst my aloe Vera, which i worked hard to grow for our consumption. Do you know if this is safe?
It "should" be. Garrett uses the same mixture in a sprayer to kill insect pests on plants (there's a video on that).
Need something I can spray over entire yard. I swear they are everywhere
All you have to do is get a shell pest strip, used to hang up to kill flying insects, and cut a 1/2 inch square, and place the 1/2 inch piece right at the ant hill's hole, so every ant that goes in and out of that hole craws across that cube and dies, and then go pick it up and put it on another anthill hole, that tiny piece placed at the hole entrance will kill every ant in the that hill, you will be amazed....And you can reuse each piece many times.....
Reply
Tried it just as described, it worked immediately! Within a few minutes, there was no more movement! Thank you for this safe and effective solution. @Dirt Doctor do you know if it is safe for animals to be around it? I have small dogs. And I feed a lot of wild birds.
Wouldn't it be just as effective to use orange oil diluted with water with a dash of dish soap as a surfactant?
He did explain that the mixture you are mentioning will burn your grass. Ants already destroy the grass and plants enough. why get rid of them just to do the same thing they are doing?
Nice , thank you!
My pasture is full of fire ant mounds. One is probably knee high and about 4 feet around. There are several that look like they branch off of the big one. I was buying fire ant killer for years but they have gotten away from us. I am going to try diatomaceous earth.
Carol, if you live in a place that has something approximating winter, wait until dusk, during a cold snap. When it's too cold for the ants to move (or to bite you), DIG-OUT THE BED. For a pasture, and a well-entrenched megacolony like that, if you have any earth-moving equipment, it would not be overkill to use it for that purpose. You want to freeze the ant babies/eggs and queens, while there's a whole night of freezing temperatures (so they can't be moved to a new location, and will simply freeze). We fill the holes with our nastiest compost slush (full of anaerobic bacteria and their natural toxins, which, according to our family's theory, should make any lingering or returning ants very sick). Our hope is that the compost slush will change the smell of the area, so that any survivors will not recognize it. Leave the hole open, overnight, which allows cold air to reach depths which would normally have a stable temperature.
We pour hot water into the holes we've dug on the grounds around our home, since that collapses the tunnels. The water doesn't need to be dangerously hot. And it's satisfying to shovel ant mounds into big buckets of hot water, of course (straight-from-the-tap-hot - not dangerously hot). But for a pasture, I think that simply digging-out during freezing weather should set them back quite a lot.
Don’t bother it doesn’t work.
For those who have trouble understanding someone with an accent turn on the closed caption.
thank youuuu
giggles
Janice Borron
What accent 😅
:-D
so you have to join the club to get the recipe? so you don't add any molasses to the bucket.
Thanks for the video where can I get the orange oil at
what does he say is the first step? at 8 seconds? can't understand southern drawl, man.
He says, "DA FURST STEP IS TO PUT DOWN DAT DER MOLASSES ALL OVER DA WHOLE PROPERTEH. "
Cherry Pauper thanks. i listened to the guy a dozen times and still....
Cherry Pauper
Howard says "the first step is to put out dry molasses all over the whole property." Thanks for watching! srugel44
I understood him, but then again I"m from Texas. Just don't put me in a group of people from the Northeast, like New Hampshire. I work remotely with people in that state sometimes and their accent is cringe-worthy. They add letters to words, for example: "drawing" is "draw-ring".
This guy is “the dirt doctor.” He has a swell hat and a startched shirt to work in the grass killing ants. I would listen to him. This orange oil looks like u can use it for so many things.
Nice hat!
awesome
I didn't see any fire ants in your fire ant mound.
Weird, huh? I noticed that, too. I use a diluted mix from what Garrett uses, and I do see them swarm up and out. That lasts for about 20 seconds and then all motion stops. I suspect that his concentrated recipe kills them much faster so you never see them swarm out. But try it. It really does work.
What is a dry molasses
It’s molasses that’s dry. It ain’t complicated.
Thx will try :-)
They build their mounds around my vegetable containers☹️
Yes, mine are under edge of square foot garden bed.
If you can move the containers, do that. FIRST, prep the mix and have it ready to go. Make an extra gallon. Then move the container. The same thing goes for doing this around ornamental rocks or pavers used in the garden. Make the juice first and then move the rocks. They will swarm fast when you move the pot or rocks, so maybe get a second set of hands involved.
If the ants are inside the container, that's different. They are likely entering through the drain hole in the bottom of the container. In that case it would be best to put the mix into a bin (Rubbermaid?) and place the container into the mix so it goes into the pot at the bottom. This should cause the ants to swarm out the top, so be ready with a gallon to catch the runners. ...although, if the bin is big enough, they still cannot get out of the bin even if they swarm over and out of the container. Heh, heh! Fire ant can float in mass on fresh water, but this mixture is pretty much instant death. They don't float on this stuff.
Men just look more manly in a hat.
#Savepoorants
I'm here to watch the ants die. I'm disappointed
Nice video! Check out our new product Ring of Fire on Kickstarter -and help us get this product available in the marketplace! #RingofFire
You know, we moved out to our farm in 1971, and ever since then, there has been one fire ant colony on the far end of the farm. They never bothered anybody. My sister built a house over there, and I ended up buying that house, and I've lived with them in my front yard for probably 20 years now. They never bother anybody. I tried to destroy them, just because they were not indigeneous to this area, and they just moved thier home 40 feet. They don't expand, they don't take over, and I've never been bitten by one. I mean, I've walked across their home, but never stood on it.
Now, I did have the big black European ants move into my trailer walls to escape the rain, and my trailer is high up off the ground. Those little buggers were aggravating. I never got bit by them either, but they were more intrusive than the fire ants. The fire ants never bothered anybody.
The ants that do bite you where ever you go all the time are those tiny black ones. Over the last 50 years, my feet have been bitten all to hell by those evil little buggers.
So if you want an evil ant to point the finger at, point it at those little black ants, the ones that ruin picnics. Those suckers get all over your food, they find crumbs, they get in your house, they bite your feet, they are just every where.
In short, fire ants have an undeserved reputation... it's the little black ants that deserve it.
Doesn't sound like fire ants to me.
@@janewalker1731 If you don't bother them, they don't bother you. It's those small european black wood ants that get into your house, into your wood working, nest inside your walls, hunt for food crumbs on your floor and then call in the army when they find some... that cause all the trouble.
I've got fire ant nests in my front yard, and I have never once seen one red ant inside my house. I've seen them on my motorcycle seat outside a few rare times exploring, and brushed them off, but that was it.
if you have never been bitten by one ,count yourself very fortunite as those nasty creatures bite is painful and the sore can last for weeks !
"All natural" is just another way of saying "Doesn't work"
Fire ants lives matter!!!
Fire Ants are dangerous for me. When I get bite, it causes a reaction. If fire ant mounts come in my yard, I will try to destroy them. Right now, I have an infestation of them. Since we had so much rain this pass week, I have 13 mounts in my small yard. Yikes! I have to do something! I am having trouble finding the orange oil in our area.
We don't have fire ants but we have and problem. An old man on RUclips said take a shovel and scoop off the top of the mound and set it on top of another Mound and both ants will fight to the death! so I tried it, I took an ant hill and shoveled it over on top of another one and the Ants fought to to the death!