Kelli vs. RIFA

We don't just grow cute kids around here!

We also have peas! And carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, green onions, cilantro, and strawberries!

And fire ants.

These are not your usual breed of ant. These are red imported fire ants, or RIFAs, brought to the US from South America via a seaport in Alabama in 1930. They are wicked little critters, more aggressive than most native ant species. If you get near them, they will summon the other members of their colony to attack you (or your son Spencer, who tried to grab one of them and was stung all over his face and hands within a manner of seconds).

And they are taking over the world, as you can see from the infestation map below:

Anyway, these wicked little buggers were eating not only my children; they also ate McKay's "pet" lizard he had been keeping in a box in the backyard. Seriously. They ate him alive. I later found out that it takes just 12 fire ants less than a minute to eat a 3 inch long lizard. Needless to say, there will be no more pet lizards in our backyard.

They were also eating my strawberries, so we got rid of them in the garden using diatomaceous earth (DE). I was told by the old guy at the feed store down the road that DE and molasses are the 2 best organic methods of getting rid of fire ants in the veggie garden. I just sprinkled a bit of DE around the outside of the raised garden, similar to how you might hang up garlic around your bed to keep out the vampires. And it worked - so far. It didn't get rid of them; they just avoid it. But millions of them still wander around freely outside the garden in the rest of our yard. To be honest, they have completely taken over. I really want to get rid of them for good, but I think I might need something a little stronger than DE, like Amdro - or pouring kerosene over their mounds and lighting them all on fire.