An environmentally safe and guaranteed way to kill ants...

[cynatnite]

1 part grits
1/2 part sugar.

Mix them up.

Put it on square piece of foil, towel, or whatever is convenient.

Place the mixture where the ants are...usually under your house or in the basement.

The ants will eat the grits and then die.

It's not an immediate solution. Ants will carry the grits to their den for others to eat. Eventually, it will kill the nest.

We've used this method and have had very few ants as a result. We repeat this every few years to keep the ants away.

It works!

[Sentath]

1. There is no such thing as a half part

With that in mind your formula reads:

2 parts grits
1 part sugar

And now on to nomenclature, I have on hand cornmeal, white cornmeal, coarse cornmeal, cornflour, and corn starch. Are any of these suitable or does it need to be treated with lye?

P.S. Sorry, had to.

[cynatnite]

3. I'll tell my grandmother...

:)

Instant grits because when moisture touches it, it expands. The ants will eat them and then they explode. The sugar entices them.

[kentauros]

6. You have never done professional baking then, I take it ;)

Where a recipe is written in percentages with flour representing 100% and all the other ingredients are written as proportional percentages related to that 100% of flour. Confusing, but it allows for easy scaling of the recipe.

Baker’s Percent
"In baking formulas primarily based on flour, each ingredient’s weight is a measured as a percentage of the total flour weight. (100 percent)"

So, technically, you could still say "half a part" if one part is at 50% of the flour weight ;) (1.0 part flour, 0.5 part water, 0.02 part yeast)

[suninvited]

2. Not according to www.organicgardening.com

Corn grits
Ineffective. The theory is that the fire ants will eat the dry corn grits, drink some water, and then die as the corn grits expand inside them. The image of greedy little ants exploding like popcorn inside their mounds is very compelling. The problem is that fire ant workers only drink liquids; they are incapable of ingesting solids. Fire ant larvae will eat solid food, but they chew it up and mix it with saliva just like we do before they swallow it. Grits simply don't work, so any perceived effects are due to mound disturbance and colony movement. (Don't look so skeptical—it's true!)

[cynatnite]

4. I probably should have specified which species of ants....

Around my house...it kills the little pests. Dead.

I rarely see an ant in my house or basement. It works.

[applegrove]

5. What are grits? I'm from Canada.

[LiberalEsto]

7. A gluey cardboard-tasting substance

made from parts of corn kernels that utterly lack nutritional value. Beloved by American Southerners.

[Elidor]

9. Lol! So true!

For the most part they're awful. There is a restaurant chain that knows how to make them tasty, but I'm boycotting them for their anti-homosexual policies, so I'll probably never eat grits again.

[havocmom]

15. Agree, but note that I have yet to meet a Southerner

with a personal ant infestation ;)

[TheCentepedeShoes]

8. A breakfast treat

(ignore what anyone else says)

[kentauros]

10. And for those of us in the South that love grits

;)
it is quite edible and tasty (as compared to that nasty cream of wheat "liquid glue" "food")

Here's the wikipedia entry for grits in case you want something of authority on what it truly is

[LiberalEsto]

11. Edible?

I guess it is, if you slather it with butter or cheese or gravy or other cholesterol-laden substances. Or fry cold grits and smother it with syrup. I wonder, though, whether anyone eats grits plain, with nothing on them.

As for cream of wheat, that's just glorified wallpaper paste.

:hi:

PS - I actually think grits are okay with salt, pepper and poached egg, I'm just being a devil's advocate here.

[kentauros]

12. Okay, that's cool

:)

But I have met people with that attitude towards grits, so... ;)

I like it fairly plain with just lots of pepper or I now use a middle eastern spice called "sumac". Great stuff! :)

[applegrove]

13. Now I want to try them. I'll have to wait. Doubt I'll be in the south any time soon.

[kentauros]

14. Maybe look for them at an ethnic grocery?

The South is in another world :P

[Chan790]

18. It's functionally mushy polenta.

If you have polenta on hand, just eat before it sets to a semi-solid state. Viola! grits.

[NV Whino]

16. Grits are simply a vehicle for butter.

[Stuart G]

17. Another idea...

I sprayed my last batch of ants with.......409...home cleaner..that did it.
.. It ain't perfect. But it isn't a powerful insecticide either.