Garden Sage, Harvest

 After picking your sage pinch off the leaves just below the leaf stem.

Place a single layer of leaves in your dehydrator and dehydrate for a day.

Sort out any bad leaves and set them aside with the stems.

   The innermost leaves are saved for freezing, because they are the most flavorful and tender parts of the plant. I use frozen herbs in place of fresh herbs, when my fresh herbs are not available.

    Stems, bad leaves and other trimmings are saved and used for either smudge sticks or potpourri, as the stems can be very bitter.

     This smudge stick was blended with wild sage, and allowed to thoroughly dry. It is wrapped with a cotton based embroidery thread. The different colored threads are used to color code the sticks so I know what each stick is made from.

DIY sugar ant poison

DIY sugar ant poison and save.

The basic formula for sugar ant poison is a light syrup and a 5% solution of borax. Basically if you wish to make a large quantity it would be one liter  or 100 mL of light syrup (which you can make) and then add 5 mL of borax. The approximate recipe that we use is [ 2 cups of water add 1/2 cup sugar. Bring water to a Boil ,turn off heat and then stir in sugar until desolved. Remove the light syrup from the burner and add 1  to 1 1/2 level tablespoons of borax. (Laundry soap booster) stir until completely dissolved and allow to cool. 

Once you have your poison syrup made you can dispense it with a squeeze bottle into soda pop bottle caps. You can then place these baited bottle caps wherever you see ant activity. I refill the caps once a day until I see a reduction in ant activity. It may take several months before I see real results but usually I do not see the ants return for several years after I have eliminated them completely.

Caution: 

This ant bait is toxic if ingested in large quantities and you should keep it out of reach of children and pets. Make sure you clearly label all containers with the ingredients,  recipe used, and be sure to include contact information for the Poison Control Center should you need it. Do not dispense more than half a teaspoon per bottle cap so that if it is accidentally ingested it is not in large enough quantity to be fatal.
Note: an adjustment has been made to recipe as it may have been on the strong side, do to a math Error. but you still want a 5% solution.