Question
how do you get rid of fire ants naturally and how do you keep cats out of flower beds

Answer
Hi Betty;
Chopped up orange peels will keep fire ants away, chopped lemon peels will keep away the cats.
If you have a large area you want to tret, you can put the peels of about 2 or oranges and 3 or 4 lemons in a food chopper and gring them up really small, dump them in a large covered glass jar 9 i use a gallon pickle jar) with one container of epsom Salts, shake and mix them very well.
Leave them overnight and shake and mic again. this gets the orange oil into all the Epsomn Salts. then you scatter that all over the area you want treAted. Grapefruit peels will keep dogs out.
It is the orange oil that repels the fire ants. Orange oil is the main ingredient in effect fire ant controls.
By chopping the lemon peels to about dime size and scattering them in your flower beds, and don't forget your container plants, on an ongoing basis, you will keep the litty cats out.
In the spring is when fire ants swarm, so i get a large bag of oranges then and chop the peels, and scatter then all over my whole yard. then everytime someone eats an orange, I chop them and scatter those in a grid that I keep in mind, so that i scatter all the later ones in a different part of the yard.
The same with the lemon peels, except i keep this up year round, so there are newly chopped peels in each place about every month or two, as the kitties use the flower beds the year round, and in the spring ar when the fire ats come out, and during the summer is the only time we see them.
Charlotte