Help with Ants

Posing a question to all of you homeowners and gardeners.

We've always battled ants at our house because it's older and has lots of small places they can sneak in. Every year we find new spots to fill with caulk and we lay down some serious nasty stuff to get rid of them.
(blech I hate using chemicals like that, but when it's the only thing making a dent...)


This year they've been extremely bad. I'm used to seeing one or two and then finding where they got in at.....but three times they've invaded in larger numbers this year. I'm talking from spring to now!

The kind of ant we have seems to not care about water as they keep trying to take over my bathroom (in the shower!). They've left the kitchen alone as of late, only trying there once. So I'm wondering, what do you guys do?

It's getting silly, I don't want to waste any more money on chemicals if they just aren't going to work and cinnamon hasn't stopped them a bit. Not even bleaching the entire bathroom (which was said to make the ants at the colony ostracize the bleach smelling ants) has worked. These are some tuff little guys.

We've bombed under the house and in the attic, seeded the yard with a spreadable seed like poison and sprayed the permiter several times. They just keep coming back.

To me it seems like they've got a nest somewhere we just haven't found the critical entrance yet. But I have combed the house. We've killed so many other bugs around our house the spiders are getting brave and exploring the floors for something to eat! (*shudders* I cannot stand spiders)

Help?

Tomatoes, Squash, Lettuce and Pumpkins

Being the only things that survived in our little garden, we've decided next year to really give it all some space.

The tomatoes are doing fine, I've gotten three little cherry tomatoes off my plant and have another pair growing up there right now. Still waiting on everything else to produce, but as most are 50 days or more...should be soon.

Tomatoes

My neighbor brought me a bag of tomatoes he'd traded some peppers the neighbor for. He said she gave him too many for them to eat so he thought he'd share.

We love tomatoes so we were more than happy to have them.

Seeing those bright red yummy treats made me a tinge jealous though. My little tomato out there is still tiny and green.

Patience is something I am working on regaining.
I'm sure it will be delish when it finally ripens though and I hope it will have some tasty siblings soon!

Our Second Growth

So far....so meh.
We've gotten nothing much out of our sprouts so far. Granted, we weren't expecting a ton as we were bad little gardeners and left the sprouts in their pod greenhouse for too long.

Unfortunate, but something we didn't really have to much control of as the weather was so wild here for a bit. Of course that was right when the sprouts were ready to move on.

So I've gathered one more bean pod and we've got our first tomato growing on it's little stalk.

I've got to buy more dirt this weekend as my squash plants have managed to push around enough in trying to stretch in their new home and have nowhere down to go. So I'll add some more top layer and cross my fingers.
It is layer gardening after all. ^-^

Til next time!

So a fresh start, litterally!

Come on in, pull on your gardening shoes and grab a chair in my back yard.

This blog is going to contain the mishaps and *hopeful* success of our family garden. We don't want much, just a few things that we love to eat and tend to buy often in the stores as is.

So here is a list of whats growing in our garden.
Lettuce
Pumpkins
Tomatoes (Big boy and Cherry!)
Yellow Squash
Green Beans

Now...when we started this project there were a few other seeds sown that didn't make it.
A moment of silence for
Spinach
Watermelon
Sunflower

Yesterday I spent the day creating a layer garden for our plants...who frankly were out growing their seedling box in leaps and bounds.
I layered newspaper (damp), organic matter (leaves and a manure mix), and then a couple of types of garden soil to round it out.


This morning I planted all the survivors and the newly purchased Tomato plants.
I also went worm hunting for some wrigglers for the garden ^-^

So far so good, we've actually gotten our first little harvest out of the seedlings. Not quite enough for dinner, but they look great to this amateur gardener.


Well, this little gardeners pooped! Off for a catnap.