rhizo_1. I take issue with your dismissive attitude to my post since you seem to essentially agree with me. It appears that you are not listening to your own opinions. My best guess to your concern with my post being silly is its remark about needing medical care but then you go on about gardening with extreme care etc. It doesn't sound like you would suggest standing on a fire ant nest and digging a bunch of holes now would you? I will admit that I was attempting to go strong on the pain etc. because (as no one seems to have noted) I was suggesting that the OP probably had other than fire ants. However, it appears that I was probably more correct than I expected. I am appending a partial link from Alergist on Normal Reaction to fire ants. Preceding this is a description of the more dangerous allergic responses. What is a normal reaction to a fire ant sting, and how is it treated? The severity of a fire ant sting reaction varies from person to person. One of the main differences between fire ants and other insects is that a usual sting event consists of multiple fire ants stinging. This is because when a fire ant mound is disturbed hundreds to thousands of fire ants respond. In addition, each ant can sting repeatedly. Each ant will bite and hold on with its mandibles (jaw) and sting several times. If not removed, this results in a little semi-circular pattern of stings. Since fire ants hold on with their mandibles, they often have to be pulled off individually and are not easily brushed off when they are stinging. Almost all people stung by fire ants develop an itchy, localized hive or lump at the sting site, which usually subsides within 30 to 60 minutes. This is followed by a small blister within four hours. This usually appears to become filled with pus-like material by eight to 24 hours. However, what is seen is really dead tissue, and the blister has little chance of being infected unless it is opened. When healed, these lesions may leave scars. A large local reaction can occur. This will result in swelling that extends beyond the sting site. For example, a sting on the forearm could result in the entire arm swelling. Although alarming in appearance, this condition is often treated the same as a normal reaction. An unusually painful or very large local reaction may need medical attention. Because this condition may persist for two to three days, antihistamines and corticosteroids are sometimes prescribed to lessen the discomfort.

Dawn dish "soap" is a detergent made from petroleum distillates so would do more harm in the garden then would orange oil which is distilled from the rinds of oranges and is used in cooking. What affect the dish detergent might have on the soil will depend on how much and how often it is sprayed.

You likely are seeing more because of the drought, but they are always there. Your garden is an ecosystem and ants merely are a part of the ecosystem. I just ignore them. They have a job to do and I assume they are doing it. I try to intervene in the natural ecosystem in my garden as little as possible. In a well-balanced ecosystem, the beneficial insects help control the pest insects a lot, so I leave them all alone as much as possible and let nature work the way it is supposed to. The only time I treat for ants is if I have fire ant mounds in the veggie garden, and I use an organic fire ant product for that. I will use borax-based ant traps if they come into the house, but they haven't come into our house yet this year. They are more prone to that that in a wet year than a dry year. Before organic fire ant killers became available on the commercial market, I tried to control fire ants in the dog yard and back yard/side yard by using a non-organic ant killer, but was never comfortable using it and would use it only once every 3 or 4 years. I haven't used a chemical fire ant killer since the organic ones became available. During drought all the pests flock to the area with the best ecosystem, meaning moisture and food. Still, they are there every year even if you don't notice them as much. It is just that there's more of them concentrated in certain areas during drought. When I want to deter ants from traveling in certain spots--like right beside the faucets or hydrants where I hook up the water hose, I spray a mixture of liquid peppermint soap/water on the ground. It repels them and causes them to move their pathway away from the sprayed area. I don't use it in the garden unless I can do so without getting any of the soap spray on the foliage. In this heat, soap spray can kill foliage quite easily. In the garden where I can't spray because of potential foliar damage, I sprinkle cinnamon (which I buy in huge containers at Sam's or CostCo) along the ants' pathway and they move elsewhere. I am surprised your tomatoes are cracking. Cracking usually occurs because of uneven moisture, and I tend to see it only after a big rainstorm or if I turn on the hose to water and forget to turn it off, thereby overwatering them and causing rapid growth in which the flesh grows faster than the skin and the skin cracks. If you'll pick your tomatoes at first blush and ripen them inside on the kitchen counter, their flavor is not impacted and you'll likely see little to no cracking. Any tomato left after first blush is likely to have issues with cracking, sunscald and pests. I think virtually everything that's "wrong" this year is because of the drought, but I don't necessarily put ants in that category. We have tons and tons of ants here every year, wet or dry. I don't know if imported fire ants have made it as far north as your place yet, but we have billions of them here. We also have the less aggressive native fire ants, sugar ants and tons of Harvester ants. I love the Harvester ants because they are a food source for one of my favorite little wild things---horned toads. We also have carpenter ants and oodles of other kinds. There's no way you won't have ants if your property is a healthy ecosystem because they are a necessary part of the ecosystem.

jane2014_ec, in an equatorial environment, on spp. like Cassia fistula, Ceiba pentandra and Mangifera indica - protection against sunscald is like 'carrying coals to Newcastle'. Rustic communities in "Third World Countries" do not expend their labor and material resources unless they obtain a tangible benefit. The next time you see a line ants busily travelling - vertically or horizontally - rub a finger across their path and watch the confusion that results. This post was edited by ronalawn82 on Wed, Oct 15, 14 at 19:30