Question
QUESTION: Charlotte, truly enjoyed your responses; especially intrigued by the use of sugar.  How do you apply it?  Broadcast?  I live in south Alabama, the Capital of Fire Ants.  What do you think about casting sugar with all these fire ants?  And can you please give the rate again, for bermuda grass.  I really appreciate your service in there.  Best regards.  --Bryant

ANSWER: Hi Bryant;
For fire ants, chop orange peels very small and scatter them in the yard. Orange oil is the main ingredient in fire ant treatments.
If you have hille of them, jujst drop a handful of the chopped peels on the hills and in a matter of hours the ants will be gone.
You can also get orange oil, add 1 ounce of it and about a Tablespoon Horticultural soap per gallon of water and spray the yard, or grind the peels in a food processor and add the pel of a couple of oranges per half gallon bag od Epsomn Salts and mix well, let it set overnight to throughly saturate the salts with the oil, and broadcast that around the yard.
I just broadcast my sugar by hand and water it in well.
You water it in well, so it doesn't attract ants.
Know what, bet we have as many of those critters here in north Texas.LOL
Since about the third year I was on the organic program, I no longer have had to treat for fire ants. My lizard and toad herds got big enough to eat them all.
Our organic GURU, Howard Garrett, says use dry molasses, but I couldn't find that when I first read it, so I used the sugar,m which he said was a good substitute.
In a couple of years, when the nurseries here started carrying dry molasses, I used it for a couple of years, and some of th weeds came back. I think the sugar does a better job, so I went back to the sugar, and have used it ever since.
Charlotte

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: G'mornin', Charlotte.  THANK YOU for your considerate response.  What about rate?  I found 1 lb per 300 sq feet...one other person said 10 pounds per 1000 sq ft.  I love your idea of doing it by hand.....I do most things that way in life.  I would imagine that at such a rate, it oughta look like slightly thinner application that would be on top of a sugar cookie.  ??  :)  THANK YOU, again!!  --Kindest regards.  --Bryant

Answer
Hi Bryant;
! pound per 300 sq.ft or 4 pounds per 1000 sq.ft.
If you use horticultural corn meal for fungus control, that is 10 pounds per 1000 sq,ft.
When I first wrote the directions I figured it at 1 pound per 100 sq.ft, but everybody had larger lawns, and you would be surprised at how many asked me for how much for a larger area, so I figured it at 3 pounds per 1000 sq.ft.
Fact is, if tou use 10 pounds per 199 sq.ft, you aren't going to harm your grass or soil, all you will do is waste some sugar.
The beauty of organics besides the health benefits to the planet and to us is, a tad too much doesn't wreck your grass and garden, the was just a tad too much chemical fertilizer will.
I don't think mine is as heavy as the sugar I put on top of a sugar cookie.
More like about how I salt a fried egg.
If you don't get it even, no problem.
All you mainly want to do it get some into the soil to feed the little microbes, and they will reproduce and spread to other areas in the soil.
I wanted to keep the wild violets. I like them, but they were some of the first to go after the first application of sugar.
I left the sugar off  in between the stepping stones in a walk so the violets in those areas would not die off, but withing three years, the last of the violets had died out and didn't come back. In that time, the microbes had spread up the walkway about 20 ft.