Grammafreddy's Home Remedy and Old Fashioned Nonsense Thread

[grammafreddy]

Earwigs like dark damp places. You can make traps using toilet paper rolls moistened with water. Put the rolls around your garden, doors, etc. They will crawl into them and then you can throw them away, flush them (but not the roll Very Happy), burn them ... whatever.

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One thing most bugs can't stand is the smell of garlic. You can make a really strong "garlic tea" by peeling lots of cloves and crushing them, add water, bring to a boil, cool and strain, then spray it on your lawn, shrubs, veggies, dirt, wherever ... Aphids especially don't like garlic, so don't forget your roses.

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A super strong garlic tea sprayed on your lawns also deters Canada Geese. If you add a bit of vegetable oil to the garlic tea, it will "stick" better to your plants and grass.

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Ants seem to be a problem this year ...

The queen ant never leaves the nest. The worker ants go out to find food to bring back to the nest to feed the queen and all the baby ants. That's their job - find food.

When you only kill the workers, the queen says, "hmmm ... I need some more workers" ... so she makes more ants. And the problem continues.

In order to solve the problem, you have to kill the queen.

To kill the queen, you have to have the workers take the poison back to her to eat.

Ants have no way to dispell gas from their systems. They don't burp or umm... "toot" .

Mix a 50/50 compound of icing sugar (the attractant) and baking soda (the gas). Put it in shallow lids around your garden, along their paths to the nest, beside your doorsteps where they enter your house, etc. - anywhere you see ants making a trail back to the nest. They'll think this is yummy and the queen will think they are wonderful workers for bringing her such a delicious treat!

Game over - they explode!!!

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More later ... have to remember what my folks taught me ...

Anybody got any questions about anything? I'll see what I can dredge up from the past or that is a natural/organic/environment-friendly solution ...

Cheers,
Gramma

[hotchip99]

No questions....I'm just in awe over 'exploding ants'!

Do they make a "PoP" sound?

[ferri]

okay grammafreddy, how about this? when i was little bitty ferri i remember watching my extra religious grandma take a plug of tobacco and toss it in warm water. she would let it soak i don't know how long, maybe over night? then strain the 'tea' through cheese cloth, put in a spritz bottle and that's what she used to spray her plants to kill bugs. veggie and flowers. i don't know if you can even buy plugs of tobacco anymore...lol

[Kelownian832]

Using a blow dryer (on low heat) works wonders for earaches.

[grammafreddy]

You betcha, itty bitty Ferri - tobacco tea has long been used as an effective pesticide and anti-fungal remedy. I don't know either if you can still buy tobacco plugs but you can buy plain old ordinary 'snuff" or chewing tobacco ( I always thought they shoulda called that awful stuff "spitting tobacco"). That would work, too.

Smart grandma you had!

Cheers,
Gramma

[grammafreddy]

Here's another bunch ...

Watching the birds will tell you if it's going to rain ... if they are flying high in the sky it will be fine weather. If they fly low it will rain. Reasoning: they are catching insects - when the atmospheric pressure is dropping, the insects fly lower, so the birds do, too. You can't see the insects, but you CAN see the birds!

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Aspen leaves will tell if its going to rain, too. They will turn over to their under side up if it is going to rain. They have a revolving stem, allowing them to catch moisture on their undersides.

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A white ring around the moon signals a change in the weather.

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That's all for tonight - this old lady has to get to bed!!!

Cheers,
Gramma

[trapp]

Now how to peel all that garlic for grammafreddy's recipies.

This is the method I use. First off you need a small air compressor with one of the small pointy air nozzles on the end of the hose. Air compressor set at about 90 + PSI.

Break apart the cloves from two or three heads of garlic. Put them in a coffee can, or can about that size. Hold the can on a bit of an angle and blast the air into the can. The garlic skins fly out of the can and the cloves rattle around in the can. About 30 seconds to peel 3 large heads. The cloves come out absolutely clean, ready to use. Just have to nip the little root ends off. I can peel about 10 pounds of garlic in 20 mins or less.

[ferri]

oh man trapp...i can hardly wait to tell BriTer i need an air compressor for the kitchen!!!

[grammafreddy]

Here's a new one for all you folks having a wasp problem this year ...

If you paint the ceilings of your porches light blue, wasps will not build nests there - they think it is the sky and they can't hang a nest on the sky!

Cheers,
Gramma

[grammafreddy]

Another one about wasps ...

In the spring when the queens are flying and colonies are separating, blow up a large brown paper grocery bag and tie it closed at the top. Hang it where wasps and hornets and yellowjackets will try to nest. They will think that place is already "spoken for" by a colony much bigger than they are and will go elsewhere.

You'll look silly with all these paper bags around your house, but your neighbours will have all the bee problems!

Gramma

[Jo]

What great ideas about the wasps, gramma! I'm definitely going to try the brown paper bag one, and maybe the blue paint when I'm not feeling as lazy.

[sarahpeter]

grammafreddy I have a question - stink bugs!!! They are ALL OVER THE PLACE!!! Is there any way to keep them out of the house without using poison (like Raid?).

Also, is there truth to the use of Bounce sheets to keep ants away?

[grammafreddy]

grammafreddy I have a question - stink bugs!!! They are ALL OVER THE PLACE!!! Is there any way to keep them out of the house without using poison (like Raid?).

Also, is there truth to the use of Bounce sheets to keep ants away?

Stink bugs??? Are you talking about Manitoba Maple bugs? These are those crawly things that have red wings when they fly and are usually found first in the early spring on white, warmer, southern-facing areas like the side of your house or on fences. They also mate tail to tail and usually drag the other around for a while before they finally separate to go their merry ways. They also stink when you step on them.

If you have bark mulch in your flower beds, you have the perfect place to house these bugs and they can become a real problem.

Try sprinkling borax around, or a baking soda mixture like for ants. Also hair spray will kill them as it contains lacquer and kinda "sticks" them to themselves (like it does with your hair)

If you are planting new flower beds and using landscape fabric, you could try sprinkling some Borax or boric acid on the beds before you lay down the fabric. I don't often recommend poisons as some bugs are beneficial and you don't really want to get rid of those ones - or else you want to be able to control where they are.

And now about ants ... no, the Bounce won't work, IMO. Try Orange Clean instead. If you can find the area the ants are using to get into your house, clean the surfaces and/or spray the area with Orange Clean. Wipe your doorsteps and windowsills with it. Spray it into your dryer vents outside. You get the idea ...

If you can find the nests by watching the ants and following their trails back to the nests, you can erradicate most of your ant problem by pouring boiling water into the nest. If the nest still looks alive, repeat with the boiling water - it'll take a lot of boiling water as some nests underground can be very large and very complex in their chamber structure.

If the ants are on shrubs and trees you can wrap a piece of cardboard, metal or stiff plastic tightly around the stalk or trunk at ground level and coat it with Tanglefoot grease. This is environmentally friendly stuff and can withstand water - rain or sprinkling. Renew it when it looses its stickiness. It comes in a paste and a spray.

Come to think of it, the Tanglefoot might work with the Manitoba Maple bugs, too. You can coat flat plastic or styrofoam trays with Tanglefoot and place them in the areas where you have the crawly bug problem.

Tanglefoot is cool stuff. Make a spider trap with it, too. Take a 6 or 8 inch square piece of light cardboard, coat one side with Tanglefoot, then fold it in thirds with the Tanglefoot to the inside, to make a pyramid triangle shape and tape the open edge closed. Place it flat on the floor where you have spiders. They will crawl inside the pyramid "tent" to hide (they like dark places) and will stick to the Tanglefoot.

Where do you buy Tanglefoot??? Well, Home Hardware has it, as does Buckerfields, and probably Art Knapps and also Bylands on the west side.

If you get it on your hands, wipe it off with vegetable oil or baby oil.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Gramma

[grammafreddy]

Here's another Grammafreddy remedy ...

When handling firewood and you get pitch from the trees on your hands, just rub some peanut butter on them and it will come right off! Works on hair, too, but I wouldn't try it on clothing as it will leave a grease mark, I think.

And another (and then I am going to bed for the night - gotta work tomorrow!)

Dog get into the burdock??? My long-haired Golden does this all the time!!!

To get the burrs out, instead of cutting them off across the hairs, cut through the centre of the burr along the hair. They come out much easier and the dog won't look like you ran over him with the lawn mower!

Hope these help somebody out there!

Cheers,
Gramma

[ferri]

hey grammafreddy, i used peanut butter to get gum out of my daughters waist length hair one time. after that i cleaned the greasy clump with a little Dawn and warm water and she was back to being a movie star.