CarbonFeet

People have been using natural insecticides for many, many years. In the beginning, they used these ways to keep their homes clean of insects, but probably were not able to use the same techniques on their crops.

For example, a lot of flies do not like basil or mint, so if you hang that up in your doorway, you will cut down the number of flies in your home, but doing that in a garden is more problematic. The ancients never found a way of coping with locusts.

Nowadays, rather than fend off, we prefer to kill. Not only that though, chemicals that are derivatives of plants are frequently synthesized, because there is more demand for the pesticide than there are plants. Chemical insecticides are more concentrated as well. So, now we have the issue, is natural insecticide all that natural?

This question is quite troublesome to those who worry about polluting the planet with too many chemicals. In fact, there is a mounting number of people who are troubled about these issues and there has been since the hippy days of the Seventies and even before. Environmentalists worry about the effect mankind is having on our environment by the over use of chemicals, particularly, but not only, insecticides.

This is why natural pesticides have seen a resurrection and why so many insecticide manufacturers love to add the words ‘natural’, ‘environmentally friendly’ or ‘eco friendly’ to their products’ containers. In fact, many are just climbing onto the eco friendly band wagon.

Look on the label, if there is a word you cannot read or do not understand or is over ten letters long, it is almost certainly a chemical. Which is not to say that it cannot be eco-friendly, but just to remind you that it is not completely as natural as it may say on the box.

In fact, there are two camps. There are the naturalists who acknowledge that some natural products that are in massive demand, have to be synthesized because there is not enough natural product and there are the purists who shun man-made copies totally. For instance, the latter group would not buy anything that comes in a pressurized can, but they would consider using a mixture of ingredients in a plastic plunger-type spray.

There is a very fine line indeed between say, man-made citronella mosquito deterrent and citronella essential oil that you have extracted from the citronella plant and mixed with alcohol or water and put into your own plunger-type spray. They are basically the same thing, but not quite are they?

At the end of the day, you are the one with your ethics and so the choice is yours. Fortunately, we have a fabulous resource for study at our finger tips, to wit the Internet. If you have principles and you are free-thinking, check out the ingredients of that ‘all natural cockroach killer’ on the Internet, before you part with your money, because there positively are environmentally friendly solutions available and they can be found in the stores, but they are usually on the bottom shelf because they do not produce so much profit.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present involved with Terro Ant Bait. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Killing Carpenter Ants.

categories: insecticide,insects,pests,ants,home remedies,gardening,landscaping,house,pets,biology,science,outdoors,other,uncategorised

I remember the day I learned my dog had died. The beautiful red-gold Irish Setter I had owned since I was fourteen no longer greeted me when I came home. I was traveling out of State and had asked a dog sitter to watch Rusty. When I got back there was no explanation, no apology, just the cold, hard fact that Rusty was no more.

Couple of males and ladies comprehend the pain of losing a cherished pet. These critics have either stumbled upon a poor encounter, or essentially have in no way experienced a canine.

Anybody who’s ever knowledgeable a pup knows how a full whole lot joy they can bring. Certain they occasionally don’t relieve themselves in the correct location, or scare your guest, but they’re worth it. From the moment they cuddle up in your arms as you bring them home, a exceptional bond is formed in involving canine and master.

I sometimes wonder about my dog. Did he die because the sitter was careless and fed him some type of bone? Maybe she hit my dog. Maybe it was because my dog missed me too much. Maybe, the sitter let the dog escape and he got run over. Maybe she forgot to close the door and someone tried to break in, and Rusty attacked the thief and got killed in the process. I don’t know.

Life’s uncertain. That much I have learned. While there are many things in life you can’t control, you should take advantage of the ones that you can control. Things like life insurance, health insurance, and home security systems, while at the time may seem like an inconvenience, can prevent so much grief. If I’d had a security monitoring system, who knows, maybe Rusty would still be here today.

For more information about Home Security Alarm Companies. Stop by the Smith Security site where you can find out all about Austin Home Security Alarm Systems and we may be able to help.

Fire ants live in many of the warmer regions of the world and in the majority of countries and in the majority of languages, from Thai to French and English, the word ‘fire’ is part of its name. This is because the sensation of pain after having been stung, not bitten, by one of these ants is similar to the pain received from a burn.

Most ants that produce pain to humans bite first and then spray acid into the wound, but fire ants bite in order to get a grip and then sting with the abdomen. The liquid that they inject is an alkaloid venom which is agonizing to humans.

It is also an insecticide and some observers think that the nurse-worker fire ants spray this venom over the eggs to ward off infection. Fire ants are easily distinguished by their red to copper-brown heads and dark to black bodies. They are between two and six millimetres in length and their mandibles or jaws look like jagged garden secateurs.

Fire ants build nests in the ground and often build up big mounds of earth, although sometimes this is concealed by a fallen tree of a pile of vegetation. The nests can be five feet deep and the mounds over a foot above ground. They prefer moist to damp ground, so the colonies can often be found on the banks of a river, on the edge of a pond or on a well-watered lawn. The nests are founded by one or more queens and can very rapidly mature to thousands of ants.

If you have fire ants in your house or garden, you will almost certainly want to get rid of them. This is not so hard, but if you do not annihilate every colony, then one of two surviving queens can produce a new nest of thousands of ants in about a month. There are plenty of poisons to kill ants on the market, and if you want to try an almost guaranteed chemical ant killer, pick one of those.

Otherwise you may want to try one of the following home treatments.

Nematodes are very small insects that live in moist soil. They eat other insects including ants. You can buy nematodes in a garden centre or on line. Mix them with rain, not tap water, because chlorine will kill them, then pour this water into the nest. The nematodes will have killed the ants within roughly two weeks. This is a wholly green method of killing fire ants.

Some people swear by club soda. Pour a bottle of club soda into the colony, the gas that the soda produces is alleged to kill the queen and the reproductive ants.

Soapy water is also said to kill ants. Use the same bowl of soapy washing up water and tip it into the colony, the soap is believed to kill them on the spot.

Boric acid is repellent to ants. so you can spread it around the base of your house and around the nest.

There are quite a few organic ways of getting rid of fire ants, if you want to find out more, look on the Internet.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with how to kill fire ants. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Killing Carpenter Ants.