We have a bit of an ant problem in the garden, well in the backyard in general.  I hate just grabbing the nearest pesticide and spraying the whole backyard… including the garden.  We are trying to be organic here!

So in the past week or so we have been searching the “intra-webs” for the organic answer to ant control and have found some quite interesting ways to get rid of ants.  All of these are organic, so if you are looking for the same thing – read on below.  The tips below should keep ants from having a party on your plants.

10 Ways To Kill Ants… Organically

1. Baking soda is poisonous to ants, spinkle it around your plants to ensure ants will stay away.

2. Flour & Baby Powder will keep ants from reaching your plants, ants will not cross the powder – so circle your plants with it.

3. You can use coffee grounds, chili powder, cinnamon, peppermint or black pepper.  All deter ants and if you pour coffee grounds directly on an anthill, they will eat the coffee grounds and implode.

4. Grits, instant rice & cream of wheat can be sprinkled around plants.  The ant will eat a piece of whichever you sprinkle, drink water and the grain expands and kills the ant.

5. Fill a spray bottle with 1 part vinegar and 1 part water and spray on plants. The acid in vinegar will kills ants.

6. Mix together one-third cup of molasses, six tablespoons of sugar, and six tablespoons of active dry yeast into a smooth paste. Use the mixture to coat strips of cardboard. Keep out of reach of pets and small children. You can leave mixture on a saucer outside anthill and they’ll eat it and die!

7. Fold contact paper in half, with the sticky side out and make a circle around base of plant. The ants get stuck on the paper – problem solved.

8. Cut off the bottom of a paper cup and cut a slit up the side of the cup and coat outside with vaseline and place around base of plant. You can also use packing tape.

9. Mix one cup of borax, two-thirds a cup sugar and one cup water. Dip cotton balls in the solution and place in areas near your anthill Ants will leave the plants alone and ingest the sweet mixture. The borax kills the ants.

10. Diatomaceous Earth is a commonly sold organic pesticide that will destroy the insects outer skeletons, causing the pests to die from dehydration.

Read our update to this post – where we tried some of the methods: Organic Ant Control Update

Tags: Gardening, Living Green by James
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One of our gardening blogging buddies over at Nestmaker, Megan, has put together a great post giving 8 tips For Building Your Garden.  Designing/building your garden might seem easy, and in some respects I guess it is.  However, there are some things that you have no clue about until you get in there and get your hands dirty.

If you have time – run (don’t walk) over to Nestmaker and check it out.

Building a Garden - Nestmaker

Tags: Design, Gardening, Link'age, Read Blogs by James
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First of all – I would like to welcome those sleep texters coming to our site by way of all the various publications that ran the story from Yvonne Villarreal (by way of Columbia News Service).  A few months back we recieved an email about a blog post I wrote regarding “Sleep Texting” (Read: All Alone: Sleep Texting).  The email was basically asking if I would mind being interviewed about my sleep texting.  Of course being the person I am, the kind that will do anything in the world to help someone help others or at least bring attention to certain issues… I agreed to the interview.  Or maybe it was the slight opportunity to promote Double Danger?!?  Nah.. never.

The interview was simple  – I aced it.  haha  Really it was just about my habits, the occurance itself and all that mess.  So afterwards I thanked Yvonne and asked for a plug for the website if possible.  Marketing 101… you know.  Since doing the interview, I had honestly forgotten about it completely. 

This morning Anna sent me an email with the subject line…

Hitting the bigtime.

I didn’t even get a chance to read it until after lunch, thinking it was a forward of some kind.  Before I headed out for lunch I checked my email and saw an attachment and it was a scanned newspaper article from the Austin American-Statesman.  It looks like the paper syndicated the article (click here for scanned image) from Columbia News Service in it’s Life & Arts section.  You can read the digital article via the Columbia News Service on their website by clicking here.  I am wondering where else this article could have been syndicated – so if anyone is in a metro area and has yesterday’s paper, check it out and let me know.  Email me a scan if you can, or give me the paper name and I will check it out.  Would like to see it in each paper.  I know… it is dumb.  I want to put it in my scrapbook and draw happy faces around it.  Seriously.

I would like to thank Yvonne Villarreal for the plug and the awesome article.  Apparently this is a bigger issue than I thought.  Issue isn’t the right word here… topic?  I dunno.  It was funny to read a few other people doing the same thing.  We have seen a few people come to our site via searches… looking for “sleep texting” or “texting while asleep”… things like that.  So we figured other people had to be doing it.  Funny to know for sure.

Thanks to Anna also, for finding & sending in the article. 

Other marketing news…

Looks like our little site is getting bigger everyday.  We are seeing visits per day & unique searches going up & up.  Being the stat nuts that we are… we have seen this all double in the past month.  We like that.  Gardeners are coming for our great pictures, handy gardening how to(s) and of course our funny stories.  BBQ searches are going through the roof.  Summer is coming quickly and so everyone is trying to learn how to be the best barbequer they can be.  The ribs post is likely the biggest provider these days with people wanting to know how to BBQ pork ribs.  Double Danger has you covered. 

We have shifted focus this past month or so to being a blog/website about lots of different things… to being primarily about Gardening Tips & Barbeque Techniques.  I know some of you have seen this shift and some like it, some don’t.  I wish we could please every single person; however I do not think that is possible.  So we are going to continue to do the things we love, and everyone is surely capable of sticking around if they like it… or leaving if they do not.  We hope you stay.

Our RSS feed is heating up as well, with folks wanting to keep in the loop with Double Danger and what we have going on.  Summer is an exciting time for us and we hope to keep you up to date on everything… but you have to sign up!

Tags: Funny, Link'age by James
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