What are your recommended ways of keeping fire ants out of the Subpod? I don't want to fill the area with pesticides, and fire ants are the biggest problem I have with current composting efforts.

What are your recommended ways of keeping fire ants out of the Subpod? I don't want to fill the area with pesticides, and fire ants are the biggest problem I have with current composting efforts.

We don’t have direct experience with fire ants specifically, but here are two suggestions that have worked well with other ants.

1) We find that ants tend to colonize a Subpod if the food waste is not stirred in and then dries out while sitting on top of the bedding of the Subpod even when it is under the blanket.  By chopping up the food waste prior to putting it in your kitchen collection bucket, it will be easy when you go to add it to the Subpod to stir it in completely covering the freshly added waste with the bedding material.  Make sure the bedding is moist, but not wet and it will not be appealing to the ants that we have experience with.  

2) If you find the fire ants on your property in the area around the Subpod, rather than pesticides, try borax mixed with sugar.  This works well added to the nests of biting ants that I am familiar with and I just looked up that it works with fire ants as well. From the internet: https://ants.com/using-borax-powder-to-kill-ants/
Using Borax to Kill Fire Ants

Fire ants are an invasive species that can cause plenty of issues if they decide to create a nest in your yard. Luckily, borax also effectively kills these colonies. Just keep in mind that you want to try to kill just the fire ants and not any indigenous ants. This is because if you kill every ant in your yard, you’re only leaving room for more fire ants to move in and take over the area.

Sparing the indigenous ants will help keep the ecosystem balanced. The easiest way to focus your borax baits for just fire ant consumption is to get a container of bait as close to the fire ant mound as safely possible. Then let the worker ants take care of the rest.

If you find ants in your home or yard, you now know how you can use borax to make liquid and solid baits to attract ants and ultimately kill the colony.

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