The active ingredient contained in the dunks and in Gnatrol is one and the same: Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis. However, the dunks aren't really manufactured for this purpose and it might be difficult to figure out an effective 'dose'. birdboy, this bacterium occurs in nature. We've just figured out ways to make use of it to protect our plants (and ourselves) against the specific insects that are affected by it. In the case of this particular strain of bacterium, many insects within the Diptera order will die after ingestion of the spores. This includes mosquitoes and fungus gnats.

Hi Sandy, I feel your pain, and I also can relate to the BB gun. I won't use anything that isn't organic or can hurt the butterflies/cats. But, I will use a BB gun. The crows would pull up the seedlings in our flower gardens and in our vegetable garden and THEN eat all of the sunflower seeds (that is... what seed the squirrels left) out of the bird feeders not leaving any for my little birds. So, I started using my son's BB gun to get rid of as many squirrels and crows as possible. The squirrels are easy to shoot, but you have to really sneak up on those crows! If you kill a crow, hang it up in the garden and the others won't come back. It will eventually disinegrate, but it really works while the dead one holds up. If you can't bring yourself to use the BB gun, just go shopping for new flowers while your husband does the necessary deed. My biggest problems in my part of Central Va are deer and rabbits. The deer try to eat all of the roses and tomatoes and the rabbits will eat every fresh thing you plant. They think you just added a new item to their 'Bunny Buffet'!! I just found out today that a mother bunny is raising her baby in the thickest planted part of my circle garden in the middle of my driveway. No wonder my newly rooted and planted butterfly bush in the circle garden got chewed off! Oh well.... I don't have the heart to leave a baby motherless or kill a baby. Glad I bought those stakes at Walmart today to put some fencing around my newest butterfly bush cuttings. OK... now that I'm finished fussing, my suggestions are: You could try using some bird netting over your seedlings to keep the birds off and maybe pin down some wire over newly planted areas to keep the squirrels out. Once the plants grow big enough, the squirrels and birds will usually leave them alone and you can stop using the netting and wire. Hope this helps. Good Luck! Betty P.S.- Miss Sherry, I envy your fencing. I dream of fencing!

Whether these highly social ants are a friend or foe can only be judged by you. There are plant species that secrete sap designed to attract these wee buggers, other plants do nothing active to attract them and few have been found that would actually try to inhibit their presence. I have seen nothing that will control them that wil not also kill off many other beneficials. If you could find the queen ant and eliminate her the colony might move on.

Princess is a beautiful cat! My dogs will chase off raccoons in the late afternoon IF the coons are so bold as to come up to the house/garden area during daylight hours, but all my dogs are securely locked up by twilight because of the large number of large predators here along the Red River bottomlands. Raccoons have managed to climb every fence I've ever had, even this year's new 7' tall deer fence, which has kept the deer out (finally!). To keep the coons out, I think we will have to add 2' more of fencing and leave it loose so it "flops" outward as they try to scale it. And, I'll still have to remove the two gates and the cedar arbor that serves as an "entry" to the veggie garden, because the coons can climb the arbor. I've had about 10 deer a day in the yard this weekend (not all at once, but up to 5 at once) but they haven't managed to get into the veggie garden, so the new fence continues to work. Some people told me that I'd need 8' or 9' of fencing to keep out the largest deer, but so far, 7' works. I used to think raccoons were "cute", but after living here for 10 years, I now think they are a cute nuisance and I know they are viciously mean. And, keep working on the soil and it will get better. I have mostly clay, and only one narrow band of almost pure sand/silt, and have improved the heck out of them for 10 years. In the beginning, I didn't think I'd ever get it into the good shape I wanted, but I think it is about where I want it now.....although the improving, of course, goes on forever. I don't think we'll ever win the "war" with the raccoons. Our raccoons are rather bold, often looking in the french patio door, knocking at the windows, or attempting to make entry through the dog door (it is duct-taped shut for that very reason, which makes it pretty ineffective as a dog door). A friend of ours who lives fairly close to McGeehee's trapped (and then shot) 18 raccoons a couple of years ago. I think it was 2006--the year the two airplanes crashed at McGeehee's exactly one month apart. Even after he disposed of those 18 raccoons, the remaining ones STILL got every single bit of his corn. Another neighbor, who lives between us and the Red River (and, consequently takes a worse "hit" in his veggie garden from the deer and raccoons and other critters) has tried just about every raccoon remedy known to mankind, and his only success has been to use electric fence very, very close to the corn. You have to have at least 2 low strands--about 4" and 12" above the ground to keep the racoons out, and you have to have several higher strands to keep the deer out (if deer are a problem for you). You know, gardening here in Love County would be pretty easy if it wasn't for the soil, the general lack of rainfall and the creatures and critters, large and small, who want to eat everything in the garden!