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Hello gardening friends, welcome to backyard basics
You know sometimes we get fire ants in our containers and it's tough to control them
But we can do it naturally. We hate to get these guys in their. All of the sudden you
find them one day - you pick up the container and there they are
You can prevent that though. There's a good way to prevent it. You go to the hardware
store you find some of the screen like this
and its used to repair the windows, keeps the screen
out there and you can fix them all the time with that. So you go buy a little
piece of that
It doesn't take too much. And then you cut off a piece of it
Depending on the size of the container you'll pick them to be different sizes a
small container
or a large one like this. This screen fits all the way across
and that way they can't make their way in their. Pill bugs are another problem too
So if they've already moved in there and you didn't put the screen on there
Well, there's other ways of controlling them. Molasses works very well
It's surprising. My assistant uses molasses
in order to control fire ants in her containers, and so she'll use this molasses
as a drench
2 tablespoons in a gallon water and you drench the plant with it and she's had
very good results and I've heard that from many other folks
Some of these blends with molasses will contain a rosemary oil. That's a nice one
A very good one - a new one kind of
And then orange oil is another one. That combination right there of orange oil and
molasses
or the rosemary... boy that works very well
So it's a good drench. And it doesn't hurt the root system in the plant
So I think that's one of the ways of controlling them
Preventing it... so another thing that we need to do is make sure that the plants
are nice and healthy and vigorous
you know when you buy them at the nursery, they've been fed a long time
And the grower brings them in, the nursery has them, and if you don't feed them...
Here's the growing cycle. They're being fed, they're being fed, and then all of a
sudden you stop feeding them
well they're not as vigorous as they were so the main thing is to continue to
feed the plants
and you can do it naturally. There are many products to do it naturally
One of the things to do is you take that good potting soil of yours
and maybe put one in the granular fertilizers in there.
So in a while that one will be available. But right off the bat, go ahead and
continue to feed
some of the fertilizers are high in a middle number, the phosphorous, and that
promotes root systems when you plant it
and if they're already established, you'll get many more flowers on it
So that's the type of product to use
The seaweed is another very good one. It has some hormones that stimulate roots
and really keeps the vigor of the plant up there and it builds cell vigor
and so in the heat or in the cold the plants don't crater so easily
So that's another one of them. Fish emulsion and seaweed
another very good choice for you. It works very well. It's one of the better
fertilizers out there compared to one of the chemicals that you might have used
and you'll see the nice results that you get
when you use these organic products. There's a product called Hasta Gro
This is one of those that promotes those blooms, so
take a look at that when that's a very very good choice for you
And their many others actually, so it's not just the Hasta Gro. Take a look
at the fertilizer, make sure it's organic and look for that high middle number
for roots and for more flowers because that's the beauty of these plants
to have a lot of flowers on them. One or the other things to do is use that
seaweed to spray the plants with
to prevent spider mites. Spider mites can be a problem in our plants all over the
different types of plants out there
and so prevention is done when we use a little bit of that seaweed spray
And you can spray it on there too. Use it as a foliar
and then spray underneath the leaves because that's where those spider mites
might show up
So, a good fertilizer program makes the plants healthy and vigorous
you bought them for their blooms. Well keep the blooms going, keep that feeding going
and you'll have a wonderful plant
You know those containers are not that big so the reservoir is very limited
so you're going to have to feed with a little bit more frequency. Well
there you go. Controlling fire ants in the containers and having a lot of blooms
and establishing a great looking flower in your pot
That's what you can do with these natural products. For backyard basics
I'm John Dromgoole
I'll see you next time