{"id":194,"date":"2017-02-03T12:25:40","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T12:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/blog\/?p=194"},"modified":"2017-02-03T12:25:40","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T12:25:40","slug":"why-diatoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/why-diatoms\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Diatoms?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_196\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-196\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Slide2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-196 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Slide2-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Brown paper bag with safety label.\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-196\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">View of bulk Diatoms bag that I repackage. Note the zero hazard ratings except for health which is (1). Don&#8217;t inhale, wear glasses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For me this journey began recently after I moved to Texas for a job in the Oil Patch.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that why everyone moves to Texas these days, work?\u00a0 I walked into a colleagues office, he was an old, been around, wear cowboy boots everyday, sort of fella.\u00a0 I showed him my hand which had three fire ant bites on it.\u00a0 I said, \u201cUm, these bites look nasty and hurt like a bugger.\u00a0 There is also a weird zit looking thing on the top.\u00a0 Do you think I should see a doctor?\u201d\u00a0 After he recovered from laughing he said, \u201cWhy Lisa, those ain\u2019t nothing but fire ant bites.\u201d\u00a0 I knew they were ant bites (now I know they are stings), but to have this type of reaction on my skin?\u00a0 He assured me it was quite normal.\u00a0 I then made the mistake of googling \u201cFire Ant Bite\u201d and realized my \u2018problem bites\u2019 were not a problem.\u00a0 Please, dear reader, unless you are a doctor and accustomed to gore, do not google \u201cFire Ant Bite\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Living with these fire ants is going to be difficult, and painful.\u00a0 So began my journey to understanding how to manage fire ants on my suburban oasis.<\/p>\n<p>I am not interested in broadcasting poison across my yard.\u00a0 I am aware of the ecologic crisis facing humanity.\u00a0 I like to think of my yard as small patch of hospitable terrain in an otherwise concrete and chemical wasteland that is much of Harris County.\u00a0 I needed to find a solution for the ants that wouldn\u2019t bother the birds and the bees.\u00a0 That solution was Diatoms!<\/p>\n<p>The question then became, are Diatoms any better for the whole ecosystem than the poisons that I was going to use?\u00a0 Why are diatoms safer?\u00a0 Diatoms should be applied directly to ant piles when the piles need to be addresses.\u00a0 Therefore it only targets ants.\u00a0 When used properly Diatoms pose less risk than most items in your kitchen, and frankly, when used improperly the risk isn\u2019t much higher.\u00a0 The primary threat is inhalation.\u00a0 So, please use outdoors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; For me this journey began recently after I moved to Texas for a job in the Oil Patch.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that why everyone moves to Texas these days, work?\u00a0 I walked into a colleagues office, he was an old, been around, wear cowboy boots everyday, sort of fella.\u00a0 I showed him my hand which had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-early"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okragardensupply.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}