Shelf Life of Fire ant Killer

[sgtking]

I made five Gallons of fire ant killer this past spring using the following ratios:
1 cup manure based compost tea
1 ounce molasses
1 ounce natural apple cider vinegar
1 ounce liquid seaweed
For disease and insect control add:
¼ cup garlic tea or
¼ cup garlic/pepper tea
or 1 ounce of orange oil

For homemade fire ant killer add:
2 ounces of citrus oil per gallon of Garrett Juice

I applied a drench to a fire ant mound after last weeks rain with poor results.
Is there a shelf life for the fire ant killer?

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Anything with active microbial life in it has a shelf life. Now I have to ask a clarifying question. You said you used manure based compost tea. Was it the tea that was manure based or was it the compost that was manure based? If you made compost out of manure, that's good assuming the finished compost smelled wonderful. If you made tea out of manure, that's bad because the pathogens in the manure will multiply in the tea. In the compost pile, the pathogens will die out completely before the pile starts to smell wonderful. So if you let the pile go all the way to smelling good, then you're safe with the compost tea.

So if you made the tea last spring, the molasses is all gone as is the seaweed. garlic, vinegar, and pepper. Those have all been consumed by the microbes for several months now. The only thing that might be left would be the orange oil. That stuff is so strong I'm not sure it would be decomposed yet.

[Kathe Kitchens]

Good points, David. I'd agree with everything you said, including the orange oil comment...except to say that it probably ate up some of them itself!

I'm curious, sgtking: Why add the apple cider vinegar & seaweed? To put nutrients into the soil as you attack the fire ants? Pretty much sounds lke Garrett juice with orange oil added, which is essentially Auntie Fuego, right? And garlic or garlic/pepper tea, which never hurts anything. Not to criticize, but just wondered why you were using so many nutrients for drenching fire ant mounds? If you have discovered more secrets, like this makes the mixture work better, please share!

[sgtking]

I made it per the formulation in the recepie section of this website.

[Kathe Kitchens]

Gotcha! :D Thanks for replying. I just wondered. FYI you don't have to use the complete recipe just to make fire ant killer. It doesn't hurt, but if you're budgeting, you can leave out all but the main ingredients (compost tea, molasses, orange oil) and still have satisfactory results. Thanks for the dialogue on this.