Give an Ant Army the Boot

Are you up to your elbows in ants? If the little buggers seem to be everywhere lately—from your pantry to your garage to your garden—here’s what you can do to say "bug off!" and avoid future invasions:

A soapy solution. When anthills make a mess of your lawn, mix ¼ cup of liquid hand soap with 1 gallon of water in a bucket, and pour it over the mounds. Repeat the procedure about an hour later.

Bait ‘em with honey. Mix 1/2 cup of honey, 3/8 cup of baker’s yeast, and 3/8 cup of sugar in a bowl. Spread the mix on bottle caps or pieces of plastic or cardboard, and set the traps in the ants’ pathways.

Call in the cukes. Ants aren’t fans of cucumbers. So lay cucumber peels in their pathways to keep them from invading.

Chalk it up. If ants are all over your trees, shrubs, or flowerbeds, sprinkle powdered chalk on the ground around the trunk or the whole planting bed. If it’s your shed or garage they won’t stay out of, sprinkle the chalk around the door and window frames.

Fortify the front line. Ants won’t cross a line of talcum powder. So use it at the entrance to your pantry, your front and back doors, and anywhere else you don’t want them to go.

Offer some refresh-mint. Keep ants out of your house by laying sprigs of fresh mint in front of your doors, windows, and any cracks or holes that the ants could sneak through.

For more bug battling, pest-repelling quick-tricks, check out our bestselling book, Critter Control & Pest Prevention. You can even try it FREE for 21 days with our Free Preview!

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Foil Garden Pests

You may think aluminum foil is just a handy kitchen product. But it's actually one of the best outdoor tools against pesky pests, as well! Here’s how to put it to work:

Keep out cats. Fill empty 2-liter bottles halfway with water. Add a tiny bit of bleach to prevent algae from growing, and drop 3 long strips of foil into each one. Set the bottles around any areas of your yard you want to protect from unwanted visitors.
Repel birds, rabbits, and raccoons with a flashing fence. Pound stakes into the soil at 3- to 4-foot intervals all around your garden, and run twine between them. Cut aluminum foil into strips that are about 1 inch wide and about 5 inches long, and tape the strips to the twine, spaced out from each other by a foot or so.
Fend off cutworms, which commonly attack young plants, by wrapping foil loosely around the stems of any delicate seedlings. The foil should extend about 2 inches below the ground and 3 inches above. When the stems of your plants reach about ½ inch in diameter and are too thick for cutworms to damage, remove the foil.
Deter flying insects by placing several pieces of aluminum foil on the soil around any plants you want to protect. The reflecting light will confuse the bugs so that they can’t land. Just make sure to poke a few holes in the foil so that water can still reach your plants’ roots.
Stop snails and slugs. These troublemakers will snack on just about any kind of plant under the sun! To keep 'em from munching, simply wrap the base of each plant that you want to protect in a 1-inch piece (or larger, if you’d like) of foil. They'll keep right on movin'.

For more critter-busting quick-tricks, check out our bestselling book, Critter Control & Pest Prevention. You can even try it out FREE for a full 21 days with our Free Preview!

Raccoons running rampant?

Don’t look now, but here come the critters to kick off their season of mischief making. Raccoons seem to be the wiliest of the bad guys—they’re agile, persistent, and smart. So whatever you do to make the rascals relocate, remember to change your tactics frequently. Otherwise, they’ll catch on to your game and you’ll be right back where you started.

The conniving creatures will eat just about anything they can get their little paws on. But corn, fruits, and berries of all kinds top the favorite list. Here are a few tricks that just might make the rascals ramble:

• Raccoons hate the smell of both bleach and ammonia. So fill old margarine tubs or other small bowls with either aromatic liquid, and set them among your vulnerable plants. 
• Keep ‘em out of your garbage cans by dipping a large wad of paper towels in ammonia, dowsing it with hot sauce, and tossing the wad into the can. 
• Raccoons have hairless and very sensitive feet, and they don’t like to walk on anything that’s sticky, slippery, sharp, or just plain strange feeling. So lay a 3-foot-wide strip of any of these materials around your veggie patch, and those critters’ll clear out fast: broken pot shards or jagged stones; nylon netting; plastic sheeting; smooth, round pebbles; thorny rose or bramble fruit canes; wire mesh. 

For more super secrets, strategies, and solutions for battling garden thugs, check out our bestselling book, Critter Control & Pest Prevention—FREE for 21 days! It’s filled with just what you need to send pesky pests packin’—pronto!