Organic Gold II - Molasses Guide by 3LB I want to make it abudantly clear that this is copied and pasted from

Overgrow f rom a user named three_little_birds (3LB). This is good stuff to know and implem ent. Without further ado: (3LB) three_little_birds' complete guide to Molasses. "There are a number of different nutrient and fertilizer companies selling a var iety of additives billed as carbohydrate booster products for plants. Usually re tailing for tens of dollars per gallon if not tens of dollars per liter, these p roducts usually claim to work as a carbohydrate source for plants. A variety of benefits are supposed to be unlocked by the use of these products, including the relief of plant stresses and increases in the rate of nutrient uptake. On the s urface it sounds real good, and while these kinds of products almost always base their claims in enough science to sound good, reality doesn't always live up to the hype. The 3LB are pretty well known for our distrust of nutrient companies like Advanc ed Nutrients who produce large lines of products (usually with large accompanyin g price tags) claiming to be a series of magic bullets - unlocking the keys to g rowing success for new and experienced growers alike. One member of the three_li ttle_birds grower's and breeder's collective decided to sample one of these prod ucts a while back, intending to give the product a fair trial and then report on the results to the community at Cannabis World. Imagine, if you will, Tweetie bird flying off to the local hydroponics store, pu rchasing a bottle of the wonder product - Super Plant Carb! (not it's real name) - and then dragging it back to the birds nest. With a sense of expectation our lil bird opens the lid, hoping to take a peek and a whiff of this new (and expen sive) goodie for our wonderful plants. She is greeted with a familiar sweet smel l that it takes a moment to place. Then the realization hits her. . . Molasses! The Super Plant Carb! smells just like Blackstrap Molasses. At the tho ught that she's just paid something like $15 for a liter of molasses, our Tweeti e bird scowls. Surely she tells herself there must be more to this product than just molasses. So she dips a wing into the sweet juice ever so slightly, and bri ngs it up to have a taste. Much the same way a sneaky Sylvester cat is exposed by a little yellow bird sayi ng - I thought I saw a puddy tat . . . I did I did see a puddy tat . . . and he' s standing right there! - our Tweetie bird had discovered the essence of this pr oduct. It was indeed nothing more than Blackstrap Molasses, a quick taste had co nformed for our Tweetie bird that she had wasted her time and effort lugging hom e a very expensive bottle of plant food additive. Molasses is something we alrea dy use for gardening at the Bird's Nest. In fact sweeteners like molasses have l ong been a part of the arsenal of common products used by organic gardeners to b ring greater health to their soils and plants. So please listen to the little yellow bird when she chirps, because our Tweetie bird knows her stuff. The fertilizer companies are like the bumbling Sylvester i n many ways, but rather than picturing themselves stuffed with a little bird, th ey see themselves growing fat with huge profits from the wallets of unsuspecting consumers. Let us assure you it's not the vision of yellow feathers floating in front of their stuffed mouths that led these executives in their attempt to pou nce on the plant growing public. And the repackaging of molasses as plant food or plant additive is not just limi ted to the companies selling their products in hydroponic stores. Folks shopping at places like Wal-Mart are just as likely to be taken in by this tactic. In th is particular case the offending party is Schultz Garden Safe All Purpose Liquid P

lant Food 3-1-5. This is a relatively inexpensive product that seems appealing t o a variety of organic gardeners. Here's Shultz own description of their product . Garden Safe Liquid Plant Foods are made from plants in a patented technology tha t provides plants with essential nutrients for beautiful flowers and foliage and no offensive smell. Plus they improve soils by enhancing natural microbial acti vity. Great for all vegetables, herbs, flowers, trees, shrubs and houseplants in cluding roses, tomatoes, fruits, and lawns. Derived from completely natural ingr edients, Garden Safe All Purpose Liquid Plant Food feeds plants and invigorates soil microbial activity. Made from sugar beet roots! No offensive manure or fish odors. That sure sounds good, and the three_little_birds will even go as far as to say we agree 100% with all the claims made in that little blurb of ad copy. But here 's the problem, Shultz isn't exactly telling the public that the bottle of ferti lizer they are buying is nothing more than a waste product derived from the prod uction of sugar. In fact, Schultz Garden Safe 3-1-5 Liquid Plant Food is really a nd truly nothing more than a form molasses derived from sugar beet processing th at is usually used as an animal feed sweetener. If you don't believe a band of b irds, go ahead and look for yourself at the fine print on a Garden Safe bottle w here it says - Contains 3.0% Water Soluble Nitrogen, 1.0% Available Phosphate, 5 .0% Soluble Potash - derived from molasses. The only problem we see, is that animal feed additives shouldn't be retailing fo r $7.95 a quart, and that's the price Shultz is charging for it's Garden Safe pr oduct. While we don't find that quite as offensive as Advanced Nutrients selling their CarboLoad product for $14.00 a liter, we still know that it's terribly ov erpriced for sugar processing wastes. So, just as our band of birds gave the sco op on poop in our Guano Guide, we're now about to give folks the sweet truth abo ut molasses. Is The Story Behind This Sweet Sticky Garden Goodness? Molasses is a syrupy, thick juice created by the processing of either sugar beet s or the sugar cane plant. Depending on the definition used, Sweet Sorghum also qualifies as a molasses, although technically it's a thickened syrup more akin t o Maple Syrup than to molasses. The grade and type of molasses depends on the ma turity of the sugar cane or beet and the method of extraction. The different mol asses have names like: first molasses, second molasses, unsulphured molasses, su lphured molasses, and blackstrap molasses. For gardeners the sweet syrup can wor k as a carbohydrate source to feed and stimulate microorganisms. And, because mo lasses (average NPK 1-0-5) contains potash, iron, sulfur, and many trace mineral s, it can serve as a nutritious soil amendment. Molasses is also an excellent ch elating agent. Several grades and types of molasses are produced by sugar cane processing. Firs t the plants are harvested and stripped of their leaves, and then the sugar cane is usually crushed or mashed to extract its sugary juice. Sugar manufacturing begi ns by boiling cane juice until it reaches the proper consistency, it is then pro cessed to extract sugar. This first boiling and processing produces what is call ed first molasses, this has the highest sugar content of the molasses because re latively little sugar has been extracted from the juice. Green (unripe) sugar ca ne that has been treated with sulphur fumes during sugar extraction produces sul phured molasses. The juice of sun-ripened cane which has been clarified and conc entrated produces unsulphured molasses. Another boiling and sugar extraction pro duces second molasses which has a slight bitter tinge to its taste. Further rounds of processing and boiling yield dark colored blackstrap molasses, which is the most nutritionally valuable of the various types of molasses. It i s commonly used as a sweetner in the manufacture of cattle and other animal feed

s, and is even sold as a human health supplement. Any kind of molasses will work to provide benefit for soil and growing plants, but blackstrap molasses is the best choice because it contains the greatest concentration of sulfur, iron and m icronutrients from the original cane material. Dry molasses is something differe nt still. Its not exactly just dried molasses either, it's molasses sprayed on g rain residue which acts as a carrier. Molasses production is a bit different when it comes to the sugar beet. You migh t say birds know beets because one of our flock grew up near Canada's sugar beet capitol in Alberta. Their family worked side by side with migrant workers tendi ng the beet fields. The work consisted of weeding and thinning by hand, culling the thinner and weaker plants to leave behind the best beets. After the growing season and several hard frosts - which increase the sugar content - the beets ar e harvested by machines, piled on trucks and delivered to their destination. At harvest time, a huge pile of beets will begin to build up outside of the suga r factory that will eventually dwarf the factory itself in size. Gradually throu ghout the winter the pile will diminish as the whole beets are ground into a mas h and then cooked. The cooking serves to reduce and clarify the beet mash, relea sing huge columns of stinky (but harmless) beet steam into the air. Sometimes, i f the air is cold enough, the steam will fall to the ground around the factory a s snow! As we've already learned, in the of sugar cane the consecutive rounds of sugar m anufacturing produce first molasses and second molasses. With the humble sugar b eet, the intermediate syrups get names like high green and low green, it's only the syrup left after the final stage of sugar extraction that is called molasses . After final processing, the leftover sugar beet mash is dried then combined wi th the thick black colored molasses to serve as fodder for cattle. Sugar beet mo lasses is also used to sweeten feed for horses, sheep, chickens, etc. Sugar beet molasses is only considered useful as an animal feed additive because it has fairly high concentrations of many salts including calcium, potassium, o xalate, and chloride. Despite the fact that it's not suitable for human consumpt ion and some consider it to be an industrial waste or industrial by-product, mol asses produced from sugar beets makes a wonderful plant fertilizer. While humans may reject beet molasses due to the various extras the sugar beet brings to the table, to our plants it's a different story. Sugar beet molasses is usually fai rly chemical free as well, at least in our experience. Although farmers generall y fertilize their fields in the spring using the various arrays of available fer tilizers, weed chemicals (herbicides) are not used for this crop due to the beet plant's relatively delicate nature. There is at least one other type of molasses we are aware of, and that would be sorghum molasses. It's made from a plant known as sweet sorghum or sorghum cane in treatments somewhat similar to sugar beets and/or sugar cane processing. If o ur understanding is correct, sorghum molasses is more correctly called a thicken ed syrup rather than a by-product of sugar production. So in our eyes sorghum mo lasses is probably more like Maple Syrup than a true molasses. In the distant past sorghum syrup was a common locally produced sweetener in man y areas, but today it is fairly rare speciality product that could get fairly pr icey compared to Molasses. Because sorghum molasses is the final product of swee t sorghum processing, and blackstrap and sugar beet molasses are simply waste by -products of sugar manufacturing, it's pretty easy to understand the difference in expense between the products. The word from the birds is - there isn't any ap parent advantage to justify the extra expense of using sorghum molasses as a sub stitute for blackstrap or sugar beet molasses in the garden. So if you find sorg hum molasses, instead of using it in your garden, you'll probably want to use it as an alternate sweetener on some biscuits.

That's a quick birds eye look at the differences between the various types and g rades of molasses and how they are produced. Now it's time to get a peek at the whys and hows of using molasses in gardening. Why Molasses? The reason nutrient manufacturers have discovered molasses is the simple fact th at its a great source of carbohydrates to stimulate the growth of beneficial mic roorganisms. Carbohydrates is really just a fancy word for sugar, and molasses i s the best sugar for horticultural use. Folks who have read some of our prior es says know that we are big fans of promoting and nourishing soil life, and that w e attribute a good portion of our growing success to the attention we pay to bui lding a thriving micro-herd to work in concert with plant roots to digest and as similate nutrients. We really do buy into the old organic gardening adage - Feed the soil not the plant. Molasses is a good, quick source of energy for the various forms of microbes and soil life in a compost pile or good living soil. As we said earlier, molasses i s a carbon source that feeds the beneficial microbes that create greater natural soil fertility. But, if giving a sugar boost was the only goal, there would be lot's of alternatives. We could even go with the old Milly Blunt story of using Coke on plants as a child, after all Coke would be a great source of sugar to fe ed microbes and it also contains phosphoric acid to provide phosphorus for stren gthening roots and encouraging blooming. In our eyes though, the primary thing t hat makes molasses the best sugar for agricultural use is it's trace minerals. In addition to sugars, molasses contains significant amounts of potash, sulfur, and a variety of micronutrients. Because molasses is derived from plants, and be cause the manufacturing processes that create it remove mostly sugars, the major ity of the mineral nutrients that were contained in the original sugar cane or s ugar beet are still present in molasses. This is a critical factor because a bal anced supply of mineral nutrients is essential for those beneficial beasties to survive and thrive. That's one of the secrets we've discovered to really success ful organic gardening, the micronutrients found in organic amendments like molas ses, kelp, and alfalfa were all derived from other plant sources and are quickly and easily available to our soil and plants. This is especially important for t he soil micro-herd of critters who depend on tiny amounts of those trace mineral s as catalysts to make the enzymes that create biochemical transformations. That last sentence was our fancy way of saying - it's actually the critters in live soil that break down organic fertilizers and feed it to our plants. One final benefit molasses can provide to your garden is it's ability to work as a chelating agent. That's a scientific way of saying that molasses is one of th ose magical substances that can convert some chemical nutrients into a form that 's easily available for critters and plants. Chelated minerals can be absorbed d irectly and remain available and stable in the soil. Rather than spend a lot of time and effort explaining the relationships between chelates and micronutrients , we are going to quote one of our favorite sources for explaining soil for scie ntific laymen. Micronutrients occur, in cells as well as in soil, as part of large, complex org anic molecules in chelated form. The word chelate (pronounced KEE-late) comes fr om the Greek word for claw which indicates how a single nutrient ion is held in the center of the larger molecule. The finely balanced interactions between micr onutrients are complex and not fully understood. We do know that balance is cruc ial; any micronutrient, when present in excessive amounts, will become a poison, and certain poisonous elements, such as chlorine are also essential micronutrie nts. For this reason natural, organic sources of micronutrients are the best means of

supplying them to the soil; they are present in balanced quantities and not lia ble to be over applied through error or ignorance. When used in naturally chelat ed form, excess micronutrients will be locked up and prevented from disrupting s oil balance. Excerpted from The Soul of Soil by Grace Gershuny and Joe Smillie Thats not advertising hype either, no product being sold there. Thats just the w ords of a pair of authors who have spent their lives studying, building, and nur turing soils. Molasses ability to act as a chelate explains it's presence in organic stimulant products like Earth Juice Catalyst. Chelates are known for their ability to unl ock the potential of fertilizers, and some smart biological farmers we know are using chelating agents (like Humic Acid) to allow them to make dramatic cuts in normal levels of fertilizer application. One way to observe this reaction at work would be to mix up a solution of one pa rt molasses to nine parts water and then soak an object which is coated with iro n rust (like a simple nail for instance) in that solution for two weeks. The che lating action of the molasses will remove the mineral elements of the rust and h old them in that claw shaped molecule that Grace and Joe just described. As we've commented on elsewhere, its not always possible to find good informatio n about the fertilizer benefits of some products that aren't necessarily produce d as plant food. But we've also found that by taking a careful look at nutrition al information provided for products like molasses that can be consumed by human s, we can get a pretty decent look at the nutrition we can expect a plant to get as well. There are many brands of molasses available, so please do not look at our use of a particular brand as an endorsement, our choice of Brer Rabbit molasses as an example is simply due to our familiarity with the product, one of our Grandmothe rs preferred this brand. Brer Rabbit Blackstrap Molasses Nutritional Information and Nutrition Facts: Serving Size: 1Tbsp. (21g). Serving s per Container: About 24. Amount Per Serving: Calories - 60; Percentage Daily Values; Fat - 0g, 0%; Sodium - 65mg. 3%; Potassium - 800 mg. 23 %; Total Carbohydrates - 13g, 4%; Sugars - 12g, Protein - 1g, Calcium - 2%; Iron 10%; Magnesium 15%; Not a significant source of calories from fat, sat. fat, ch olesterol, fiber, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C." Hows of Molasses Undoubtedly some folks are to the point where they are ready for our flock to cu t to the chase. All the background about molasses making and the various kinds o f molasses is good, and knowing how molasses works as a fertilizer is great too, but by now many of you may be thinking - isn't it about time to learn how to ac tually use this wonder product?! So this section of the Molasses Manual is for o ur birdie buds who are ready, waiting, and wanting to get going with bringing th e sticky goodness of molasses into their garden. Molasses is a fairly versatile product, it can serve as a plant food as well as an additive to improve a fertilizer mix or tea. Dry molasses can be used as an i ngredient in a fertilizer mix, and liquid molasses can be used alone or as a com ponent in both sprays and soil drenches. Your personal preferences and growing s tyle will help to decide how to best use this natural sweetener for it's greates t effect in your garden. We will try and address the use of dry molasses first, although we will openly a

dmit this is an area where we have little actual experience with gardening use. We've certainly mixed dry molasses into animal feed before, so we're not totally unfamiliar with its use. Folks may remember from our earlier description of the various kinds of molasses that dry molasses is actually a ground grain waste ca rrier which has been coated with molasses. This gives dry molasses a semi-granul ar texture that can be mixed into a feed mix (for animals) or a soil mix (for ou r favorite herbs). Dry molasses has a consistency that was described by one bird as similar to mouse droppings or rat turds, (folks had to know we'd fit a manur e reference in here somehow). The best use we can envision for dry molasses in the herb garden is to include i t in some sort of modified super-soil recipe, like Vic High originally populariz ed for the cannabis community. As we admitted, the use of dry molasses in soil m ixes isnt something we have personal experience with, at least not yet. We are p lanning some experiments to see how a bit of dry molasses will work in a soil mi x. We believe that moderate use should help stimulate micro-organisms and also h elp in chelating micronutrients and holding them available for our herbs. The pl an is to begin testing with one cup of dried molasses added per 10 gallons of so il mix and then let our observations guide the efforts from there. Another option for molasses use in the garden is its use alone as a fertilizer. The Schultz Garden Safe Liquid Plant Food is a perfect example of the direct app lication of molasses as a plant food. Garden Safe products are available from a variety of sources, including Wal-Mart. Although we consider them overpriced for a sugar beet by-product, Garden Safe products are fairly cost effective, especi ally compared to fertilizers obtained from a hydroponics or garden store, and th ey can serve as a good introduction to molasses for the urban herb gardener. Here are the basic instructions a gardener would find on the side of a bottle of this sugar beet by-product - Mix Garden Safe Liquid All Purpose Plant Food in w ater. Water plants thoroughly with solution once every 7-14 days in spring and s ummer, every 14-30 days in fall and winter. Indoors, use 1/2 teaspoon per quart (1 teaspoon per gallon); outdoors, 1 teaspoon per quart (4 teaspoons per gallon) . 32 fluid ounces (946ml). Contains 3.0% Water Soluble Nitrogen, 1.0% Available Phosphate, 5.0% Soluble Potash derived from molasses. In our own experience with Garden Safe Liquid fertilizers, weve used a pretty cl ose equivalent to the outdoor rate on indoor herbs with some good success. Our b est application rate for Garden Safe 3-1-5 ended up being around 1 Tablespoon pe r gallon ( 1 Tablespoon = 3 teaspoons). Used alone its really not a favorite for co ntinuos use, since we dont see Garden Safe 3-1-5 as a balanced fertilizer. It do esnt have enough phosphorous to sustain good root growth and flower formation in the long term. Its best use would probably be in an outdoor soil grow where the re are potential pest issues. Animal by-products like blood meal and bone meal a re notorious for attracting varmints, so Garden Safe sugar beet molasses fertili zers could provide an excellent plant based source of Nitrogen and Potassium for a soil thats already been heavily amended with a good slow release source of ph osphorous, our choice would be soft rock phosphate. Blackstrap molasses could also be used in a similar fashion, as a stand alone li quid fertilizer for the biological farmer who needs to avoid potential varmint p roblems caused by animal based products. But, we really believe there is a bette r overall use for molasses in the organic farmer's arsenal of fertilizers. Our s uggestion for the best available use, would be to make use of the various molass es products as a part making organic teas for watering and foliar feeding. Since many of the folks reading this are familiar with our Guano Guide, it will come as no surprise to our audience that molasses is a product we find very usef ul as an ingredient in Guano and Manure teas. Most bat and seabird guanos are fa irly close to being complete fertilizers, with the main exception being that the

y are usually short in Potassium. Molasses is turns out is a great source of tha t necessary Potassium. As we learned earlier, molasses also acts as a chelating agent and will help to make micronutrients in the Guano more easily available fo r our favorite herbs. A good example of a guano tea recipe at the Birds Nest is really as simple as the f ollowing: 1 Gallon of water 1 TBSP of guano (for a flowering mix we'd use Jamaican or Indonesian Bat Guano for a more general use fertilizer we would choose Peruvian Seabird Guano.) 1 tsp blackstrap or sugar beet molasses We mix the ingredients directly into the water and allow the tea mix to brew for 24 hours. It's best to use an aquarium pump to aerate the tea, but an occasiona l shaking can suffice if necessary and still produce a quality tea. We will give you one hint from hard personal experience, make sure if you use the shake meth od that you hold the lid on securely, nobody appreciate having a crap milkshake spread over the room. Some folks prefer to use a ladys nylon or stocking to hold the guano and keep it from making things messy, but we figure the organic matter the manure can contr ibute to the soil is a good thing. Using this method we feel like we are getting the benefits of a manure tea and a guano top-dressing all together in the same application. If you prefer to use the stocking method, feel free to feed the tea bag leftovers to your worm or compost bin, even after a good brewing theres lot s of organic goodness left in that crap! We also use molasses to sweeten and enrich Alfalfa meal teas. Our standard recip e for this use is: 4 gallons of water 1 cup of fine ground alfalfa meal 1 TBSP blackstrap or sugar beet molasses After a 24 hour brew, this 100% plant-based fertilizer is ready for application. Alfalfa is a great organic plant food, with many benefits above and beyond just the N-P-K it can contribute to a soil mix or tea. We do plan to cover Alfalfa a nd it's many uses in greater detail soon in yet another thread. We prefer to mix our alfalfa meal directly into the tea, but many gardeners use the stocking tea bag method with great effectiveness, both work well, its really just a matter o f personal preference. The alfalfa tea recipe we described can be used as a soil drench, and also as a foliar feed. And foliar feeding is the final use of molasses wed like to detail. Fo liar feeding, for the unfamiliar, is simply the art of using fine mist sprays as a way to get nutrients directly to the plant through the minute pores a plant b reathes through. It is by far the quickest and most effective way to correct nut rient deficiencies, and can be an important part of any gardeners toolbox. Molasses is a great ingredient in foliar feeding recipes because of it's ability to chelate nutrients and bring them to the table in a form that can be directly absorbed and used by the plant. This really improves the effectiveness of folia r feeds when using them as a plant tonic. In fact it improves them enough that w e usually can dilute our teas or mix them more lean - with less fertilizer - tha n we might use without the added molasses. Of course it is possible to use molasses as a foliar feed alone, without any add ed guano or alfalfa. It's primary use would be to treat plants who are deficient in Potassium, although molasses also provides significant boosts in other essen tial minerals such as Sulfur, Iron and Magnesium. Organic farming guides suggest application rates of between one pint and one quart per acre depending on the t arget plant. For growing a fast growing annual plant like cannabis, we'd suggest a recipe of 1 teaspoon molasses per gallon of water.

In all honesty, we'd probably suggest a foliar feeding with kelp concentrate as a better solution for an apparent Potassium shortage. Kelp is one of our favorit e foliar feeds because it is a complete source of micronutrients in addition to being a great source of Potassium. Kelp has a variety of other characteristics t hat we love, and we plan that it will be the topic of it's own detailed thread a t a future date. But, for growers that cannot find kelp, or who might have probl ems with the potential odors a kelp foliar feeding can create, molasses can prov ide an excellent alternative treatment for Potassium deficient plants at an affo rdable price. That looks at most of the beneficial uses of Molasses for the modern organic or biological farmer. Just when you think that's all there could be from our beaks on the topic of molasses, that molasses and it's sweet sticky goodness surely ha ve been covered in their entirety, the birds chirp in to say, there is one more specialized use for molasses in the garden. Magical molasses can also help in th e control of Fire Ants, and perhaps some other garden pests. Molasses For Organic Pest Control One final benefit of molasses is it's ability to be used in the control of a cou ple of common pests encountered in gardening. The most commonly known use of mol asses is it's ability to help control Fire Ants, but we've also found an interne t reference to the ability of molasses to control white cabbage moths in the UK, so molasses could be an effective pest deterrent in more ways that we are aware . As we said before, there are several references we've run across refering to the ability of molasses to control Fire Ants. Since we're not intimately familiar w ith this particular use of molasses, and rather than simply re-write and re-word another's work, we thought we'd defer to the experts. So for this section of th e current version of the Molasses Manual, we will simply post a reference articl e we found that covers topic in better detail than we currently can ourselves. Molasses Makes Fire Ants Move Out By Pat Ploegsma, reprinted from Native Plant Society of Texas News Summer 1999 Have you ever started planting in your raised beds and found fire ant highrises? Are you tired of being covered with welts after gardening? Put down that blowto rch and check out these excellent organic and non-toxic solutions. Malcolm Beck1, organic farmer extraordinaire and owner of Garden-Ville Inc., did some experiments that showed that molasses is a good addition to organic fertil izer (more on fertilizer in the next issue). When using molasses in the fertiliz er spray for his fruit trees he noticed that the fire ants moved out from under the trees. I got an opportunity to see if molasses really moved fire ants. In my vineyard, I had a 500 foot row of root stock vines cut back to a stump that nee ded grafting. The fire ants had made themselves at home along that row. The moun ds averaged three feet apart. There was no way a person could work there without being eaten alive! I dissolved 4 tablespoons of molasses in each gallon of wate r and sprayed along the drip pipe. By the next day the fire ants had moved four feet in each direction. We were able to graft the vines without a single ant bot hering us. This gave him the idea for developing an organic fire ant killer that is 30% ora nge oil and 70% liquid compost made from manure and molasses. The orange oil sof tens and dissolves the ant's exoskeleton, making them susceptible to attack by t he microbes in the compost, while the molasses feeds the microbes and also smoth ers the ants. After the insects are dead, everything becomes energy-rich soil co nditioner and will not harm any plant it touches. It can be used on any insect i ncluding mosquitoes and their larvae. Break a small hole in the crust in the center of the mound then quickly!!! pour the solution into the hole to flood the mound and then drench the ants on top. L

arge mounds may need a second application. Available at Garden-Ville Square in S tafford, it has a pleasant lemonade smell. According to Mark Bowen2, local landscaper and Houston habitat gardening expert, fire ants thrive on disturbed land and sunny grassy areas. Organic matter provides a good habitat for fire ant predators such as beneficial nematodes, fungi, etc. Other conditions favoring fire ant predators include shading the ground with pl antings, good soil construction practices and use of plants taller than turfgras ses. He recommends pouring boiling soapy water over shallow mounds or using Asce ndTM. Ascend is a fire ant bait which contains a fungal by-product called averme ctin and a corn and soybean-based grit bait to attract fire ants. Ascend works s lowly enough to get the queen or queens and it controls ants by sterilizing and/ or killing them outright. Malcolm Beck also did some experiments with Diatomaceous Earth - DE - (skeletal remains of algae which is ground into an abrasive dust) which confirmed that DE also kills fire ants. He mixes 4 oz. of DE into the top of the mound with lethal results. According to Beck, DE only works during dry weather on dry ant mounds. Pet food kept outdoors will stay ant free if placed on top of a tray with sever al inches of DE 1Beck, Malcolm. The Garden-Ville Method: Lessons in Nature. Third Edition. San A ntonio, TX: Garden-Ville, Inc., 1998. 2Bowen, Mark, with Mary Bowen. Habitat Gardening for Houston and Southeast Texas . Houston, TX: River Bend Publishing Company, 1998.

As we had also mentioned earlier, while researching the uses of molasses in gard ening, we also came across a reference to its use in the control of white cabbage m oths. Heres what we found on that particular topic. I came across this home remedy from the UK for white cabbage moths. Mix a tablespoon of molasses in 1 litre of warm water and let cool.. spray every week or every 2 weeks as required for white cabbage moth..they hate it..and I think it would be good soil conditioner as well if any drops on your soil.. It works for me...but gotta do it before white butterfly lays eggs...otherwise you might have to use the 2 finger method and squash grubs for your garden birds.. "nutNhoney" wrote in message news:10eb7o36vst8r1b@corp.supe rnews.com... > To the kind soul who posted the tip for spraying members of the cabbage > family with a molasses solution, thank you so much. Today, I noticed a > white moth hovering around my brussel sprouts. I quickly made up a > solution of molasses and rushed back to the garden to spray. The moth > did not land! It seemed to be repelled by the molasses. I sprayed the > broccoli too for good measure. I think I will spray again for the next > few days. If it keeps the cabbage caterpillars off, I will be so happy. > Thanks again! So there you have it, not necessarily straight from our mouths, but simply one m ore potential use we've discovered for molasses, with at least one testimonial f or it's effectiveness. As we said before, the use of molasses as an foliar spray , in addition to it's potential use as a pest deterrent, would also serve to pro vide some essential nutrients directly to our plants, and would especially serve as an effective boost of Potassium for plants diagnosed with a deficiency in K. Healthy plants are more resistant to the threat of pests or disease, so molasse s really is a multi-purpose organic pest deterrent.