Ants in the vegetable garden

Around here ants are a symptom of dry soil. They should disappear if you flood them a few times, and most veggies like it moist anyhow.

Considering the crap that our food is saturated in before it hits the processing plants on the way to the grocery store shelf - I'd take Borax any day !!

That works in Maine...Fire ants are an entirely different story..they'd eat the chickens in a chicken tractor..if the OP has fire ants, then the very last thing you'd wish to do is trap some living thing over a fire ant mound

Here's the thing. There are various scientific ways of examining events. For generations people saw planets wandering in the sky while standing on what seemed to be fixed ground, and believed that the planets moved around their viewpoint. It WAS the science of the time. For years, doctors claimed there was no scientific proof that washing their hands was needed. THAT was the science of the time. For years, ulcers were treated with calcium products and the idea of a type of bacteria being the real cause was laughed out of discussions. THAT was science as well.

When a single individual states something that flies in the face of established science, there is reason to suspect the person my have misinterpreted, other factors may have been involved, or there was some lying. When multiple individuals who have no connection report similar findings, it begins to go from apocryphal story to empirical data. Repeated empirical data always trumps current theory. The theory may be modified to explain the data, but the old theory has failed the test of reality. Science is reality based.

Besides, when you consider the statement about liquids and solids, it has an inherent falsehood. Proteins and sugars ARE solids. Borax is a solid. Mix sugar into ant bait and if you use pure sugar you are adding a solid that they eat. The more correct statement is that ants need solids in a suspension (gravy to humans) to ingest them. There is no sane reason to think that corn gluten can't be put into suspension or gravy - especially since corn starch is the traditional thickener in most gravy.

One other thing - I have been rethinking DE. It is silica (the stuff that makes up most sands) Sharp sand (the stuff used in sandblasting) can get wet and it is still sharp. DE might look like mud when it gets wet, but it also should still be sharp on a very small level, hence should work well unless it gets caked.

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