As you know from previous talks, we are a family farm and therefore we are out in the country. As with most, if not all, places country or not, we have ants. We fight ants almost year-round. We found a great recipe for “Agent Orange” oil ant killer from a like-minded blogger.

The original blog from Countryside can be found here:

https://www.iamcountryside.com/homesteading/adventures-in-orange-oil-ant-killer/?mqsc=E3901251&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=CSN+ListCountryside+Daily&utm_campaign=Daily+7-31-17

This is the original recipe from Countryside:

One orange peel

Crush all seeds from the orange

One cup almond or grape oil

A few whole cloves, crushed

A tablespoon rubbing alcohol or witch hazel

Put it all in the bottle and store in a dark place for two months or until needed. When needed add 1/4 cup of “Agent Orange” oil ant killer to two quarts of water.

You will also know from other talks, we avoid chemical cleaners and pesticides. We try to be sure everything we use on the farm and for the family is as natural and safe as possible. We also love to make things for ourselves. We take pride in hand making the things we need and use daily. It also gives us the satisfaction of moving a bit closer to being self-sufficient.

As we, here on the farm, like to do things in bulk and in overkill, we made a huge batch. We also like to use “everything and every part” of things, if possible. If you have seen any of our other talks, you have heard us talk about no waste, recycling, and up-cycling. We want the kids to know how to and understand the reason for no waste and how to use everything you have. Waste not, want not.

Normally when we go to make something, we look at the materials and what will be leftover to decide what we can make with the leftovers. This can be a real brain teaser sometimes but it is also a good way to get the whole family into thinking mode.

This day there was a large making of Ambrosia, usually made for Christmas, but this time just because we had a lot of citrus on hand. So we had a lot of orange and grapefruit peels leftover. This was the perfect time to try the “agent orange” recipe.

We saved all the peel and seeds from the Ambrosia making and set them aside to use for the “agent orange”.

While getting things together, we found we had way too many peels. We decided to go for 2 projects with the leftover peels. We made “agent orange” and citrus vinegar cleaner.

We did a talk about the citrus vinegar cleaner, you can find that here. Today we finish the tale of “agent orange”.

So as I said, we usually go for overkill and this was no exception. We had far too many peels to make the original recipe so we used what we had and made the recipe fit.

We ended up using about 10 oranges for this recipe, it still made a large batch. We saved out the rest for the vinegar cleaner.

Our recipe for “agent orange” ant killer:

A large glass jar

The leftovers of 10 oranges, peels, and seeds.

10 cups oil, several kinds in this case

5 tablespoons Witch Hazel

5 tablespoons alcohol

1/2 cup cloves

We crushed the seeds as the original recipe calls for. This was not as easy as it would seem. We first tried a mortar and pestle but the slimy seeds just shot out all over the kitchen. We then tried a small hammer, the same issue, one good whack, and the seed when flying across the room. We finally found success with a pair of pliers. You can hold one seed at a time and squash it with the pliers without losing the seed. It should be noted that if you do not hold the pliers correctly, you will also squash your hand in the process.

We did a rough calculation for how many cloves we would need. We crushed the cloves with a mortar and pestle, without any injury or other issues.

This is where things lean to the overkill part. We had to use both alcohol and witch hazel as we did not have enough of either to make the whole batch. We used 10 tablespoons of both to make up the correct amount of liquid.

We also had to improvise on the carrier oils as we did not have 10 cups of anyone. We mixed grapeseed oil, almond oil, and olive oil to make up the correct amount of oils for the extra-large recipe we now found ourselves with.

We put all ingrediants into the large glass jar as we went.

When we had everything in the jar, we put the lid on and gave it a gentle swish, not as hard as a shake.

We then labeled the jar and put it in the bottom of the pantry. That is a dark place that no one spends much time in, so things are left pretty much alone.

After the allotted 2 weeks, we strained off the liquid from the jar. It was a very thick, sticky job but we got a good bit of “Agent Orange Oil” from this first try. We are very proud of our first batch even if it did not really work out as instructed.

This recipe will give you a thick oil to work with. It may be best to follow the actual recipe and not make so much at one time unless you are under constant ant attack. We used the measurements from the original recipe to mix up into a sprayer bottle. It worked very well and left a not unpleasant scent. It is oily so be sure to spray only on things that do not matter if they are a bit oily and sticky when you are done. Also a side note, it is best NOT to spray near good garden insects or snails.

We have made our first batch of Agent Orange Ant Killer and we are very pleased with the outcome. We plan to continue using Agent Orange Ant Killer for future ant issues around the farm.

We hope you have enjoyed this talk on “ant control” and hope you will try it for yourself.

Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.