Beryl Saunders from Cape Town

by Beryl Saunders
(Cape Town SA)

To start off it is great to find a South African contributing on this page about diatomaceous earth. Nearly all information comes from overseas.

My particular interest is about the effect that DM earth has on ants that invade worm bins.

Cape Town is well known for its ant populations.I began to rid them outside with a mixture of water, sugar and Borax.

I placed small plugs of the mixture around my stoep/verandah near to where the ant heaps were.

The population was very quickly reduced but I knew I could not get rid of the ants in my worms bins with this mixture for fear of killing the worms.

I read somewhere that Fullers Earth was also an ant deterrant. I applied a very light sprinkling to the top of the worm compost in the bin. The ants either died or left the bin within a day never to return.

Previously I did the usual vaseline application around the bins sprayed with an insect deterrant that I dislike using. Nothing helped.

I also use Fullers Earth in the house if I see any sign of ants. The borax mixture is too sticky to use inside but the powder results in many dead ants.

I have been worm farming for 5 years now but have never seen so many ants as this year.

Beryl

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