Question
Charlotte,

Hi

I live in eastern NH and have sandy soil with maybe only 4 inches of top soil(black gold) to which I have been trying to grow grass on.  I bought 7 yards of loam and now it doesn't seem like the loam was a good choice medium to grow grass in. The PH is 6. I have a yard full of weeds and now poison ivy in the lower yard where the leech field lays(hence the sandy soil) The yard receives full sun and we have ants(small ones, black ants and the ants with red backs that eat wet wood. What can I do to crowd out the weeds without putting down Chems from SCOTTS lawn products and such?  Sugar?

Thank you for your insight,
Andy

Answer
Hi Andy;
Thank you for the nice rating.
I would stop using the borax.
It can be very damaging to you if you breathe it in. It is dangerous to have around pets and children too.
If it will harm pets, it might harm your lawn critters you need to eat the harmful insects.
Charlotte

Hi Andy;
Why do you say the loam was a bad medium to plant in?
Did you till it into the sand?
Tilling loam into the sand would start to tighten up that sand some.
I don't know what a leech field is. That is not a term used in my part of the country, so it is probably something we have, but just call it by another name.
Putting down sugar will nourish any micro-organisms that are in the soil, so they will reproduce and enrich the soil.
Eventually they will balance out the PH in the soil.If the loam is tight, just tilling it into the sandy soil will greatly improve it.
I had poison ivy in my alleyway, so I threw sugar out there for a couple of seasons, and away went the poison ivy.
When you have some lawn critters like, toads and lizards, they will eat the ants. n the meantime, you can throw chopped orange and lemon peels down, and that will chase the ants.
Are those ants that eat wood, carpenter ants or termites.
Termites look like ants, but don't have the slender waist that ants have. Carpenter ants have wings when they are swarming, but am not sure if every stage of their lifespan has wings. Termites also swarm. Not sure if they have wings or not.
Cedar bark mulch chases termites, and probably would chase carpenter ants.
I scatter cedar bark mulch all over in early spring, when it is time fopr termites to swarm, and since doing that, I have never had termites or carpenter ants. They do a lot of damage around here. Texas, I think, has every species of bugs there is.
You can chop orange and lemon peels, and add them to Epsom Salts, to make them cover a larger area, with fewer pieces of the fruit.
I get bags of Epsom Salts that are about a half gallon, and add the chopped peels of about 2 oranges and 2 or 3 lemons per bag of salts, store it in a glass container, or plastic jars or bottles you don't want to keep. The oil will soak into the pores of the plastic, and will not come out.Orange oil is the main ingredient of the effective fire ant killers.
After you scatter the peels, the ants will start to disappear in a matter of hours.
I chop them in my food processor so it really grinds them, and the oil soaks into the epsom salts. Leave it overnight so the oil will permeate all the salts well.
Guess poison qualifies as a weed. Sure does to me.LOL
I stopped and looked up ant species and carpenter ants do have a red spot on their back.
Charlotte