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There is a little box that has sat in American cupboards for over a hundred and thirty years, the plain borax, a couple dollars at any store, and most folks use it for the laundry and never know the half of what it can do. For that same cheap box of white powder is one of the most useful things a gardener and a homesteader can keep on hand, good against a whole host of pests and troubles about the garden and home, and the old people leaned on it hard.
I keep up this Lancaster County place and garden with my own hands, the way my people always have, and borax has been on our shelf my whole life. My mother used it at the kitchen sink against the ants, my father around the milkhouse, my grandmother on the cellar walls. But mind me close, for borax is a kind of salt, and a little does good while a lot does harm. You measure it in level spoons, never heaping, and keep it from children and pets. Used with that plain care, it does the work of a whole shelf of dear bottles for pennies.
Here is what I walk you through in this one:
✓ The sweet ant bait that the workers carry home to kill the whol
There is a little box that has sat in American cupboards for over a hundred and thirty years, the plain borax, a couple dollars at any store, and most folks use it for the laundry and never know the half of what it can do. For that same cheap box of white powder is one of the most useful things a gardener and a homesteader can keep on hand, good against a whole host of pests and troubles about the garden and home, and the old people leaned on it hard.
I keep up this Lancaster County place and garden with my own hands, the way my people always have, and borax has been on our shelf my whole life. My mother used it at the kitchen sink against the ants, my father around the milkhouse, my grandmother on the cellar walls. But mind me close, for borax is a kind of salt, and a little does good while a lot does harm. You measure it in level spoons, never heaping, and keep it from children and pets. Used with that plain care, it does the work of a whole shelf of dear bottles for pennies.
Here is what I walk you through in this one:
✓ The sweet ant bait that the workers carry home to kill the whol
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There is a little box that has sat in American cupboards for over 130 years, the plain borax, a couple
00:08dollars at any store, and most folks use it for the laundry and never know the half of what it
00:15can do.
00:15For that same cheap box of white powder is one of the most useful things a gardener and a homesteader
00:23can keep on hand, good against a whole host of pests and troubles about the garden and the home, and
00:30the old people leaned on it hard.
00:33Today, I am going to give you 11 uses for a $2 box of borax, the cheap old ways the
00:41plain people have used it for generations that can save you a small fortune on the deer bottles and sprays
00:48from the store.
00:50But mind me close, for borax must be used with care and in the right small amounts, and I will
00:57tell you the safety as we go.
00:59I am Elias, and I keep up this Lancaster County place and garden with my own hands, the way my
01:08people always have, and borax has been on our shelf my whole life.
01:14Now, before the very first use, let me give you the one safety word that governs all of them, for
01:21it matters.
01:22Borax is a kind of salt, and like salt, a little does good and a lot does harm.
01:29In small measured amounts, it is a useful and fairly gentle thing, but too much of it will burn a
01:37plant down and even sour a patch of soil for a year or two.
01:42So you measure it in level spoons, never heaping, never by guess, and you keep the box and the baits
01:50up away from children and pets, for it is not a thing to be eaten.
01:55Used with that plain care, it is safe and useful as it has been for generations.
02:01Mind the dose, and it serves you well.
02:05Quick word before I go further.
02:07The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
02:13I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
02:19The book is the long version.
02:21If you want it, it is there.
02:23I will not mention it again.
02:26Let me tell you a little about what this powder even is, for it helps you trust it.
02:31Borax is no manufactured chemical brewed in a laboratory.
02:36It is a plain mineral, dug out of the ground, out of old dry lake beds in the western deserts,
02:43and hauled out by the wagon load for well over a hundred years, the same white powder all that time.
02:51The same mineral your great-grandmother washed the diapers with is the same in the box on the store shelf
02:58today.
02:59It is about as plain and old and honest a substance as you will find, which is exactly why the
03:06old people trusted it for so many things.
03:09Now, I will say, the box today carries more of a warning label than it did in your grandmother's time,
03:16and folks ask me about that.
03:18The plain truth is that warning is about breathing the dust day after day as a miner might, not about
03:27a careful spoonful on an ant trail.
03:29And the makers print one strong warning to cover every use rather than two.
03:36So read the label, keep it from the children and pets as you would the dish soap or the vinegar,
03:41use the small measured doses I give you, and it is the same useful mineral it always was.
03:49With that understood, let me give you the eleven.
03:53The first use, and the one my mother used at the kitchen sink when I was a boy, is the
03:59ant killer.
04:00When the ants found the bread box, she would mix a little borax into warm sugar water in a jar
04:06and be rid of them.
04:07And it works to this day.
04:10Here is the secret of why it works, and it is clever.
04:14The borax does not kill the ant on the spot.
04:17You mix about a teaspoon of borax into a cup of warm water with a good half cup of sugar.
04:24Stir till it is clear, soak some cotton balls in it, and set them on a jar lid right where
04:30the ants trail.
04:31Now here is the important part.
04:34Do not kill the ants you see.
04:37Do not wipe the trail.
04:39You want those workers to drink the sweet bait and carry it home to the nest,
04:44where it feeds the queen and the whole colony.
04:47And in a few days, the whole nest dies from the inside.
04:52The sweet draws them, the borax does the work, and they carry their own end home.
04:58Keep that bait up where no child nor pet can get at it, mind,
05:02for it is sweet and meant to be eaten by the ants alone.
05:06And have a little patience with it, for this is the very opposite of stamping on every ant you see.
05:12The hard thing for most folks is to watch the ants drink and crawl away and not kill a one
05:19of them.
05:19But that is the whole trick.
05:21You are letting them be your delivery men,
05:24carrying the poison down into the nest where you could never reach.
05:28So leave them be, let them work, and in two or three days, the trail will simply be gone.
05:34The whole hidden colony, dead from the inside.
05:38I still remember my mother telling me to leave the ants alone at that jar lid,
05:43hard as it was to a boy who wanted to squash them,
05:45and sure enough, by morning, they were gone.
05:48The second use is against slugs and snails,
05:52the ruin of your hostas and lettuce and strawberries,
05:55that leave the slime and the holes by morning.
05:58Borax draws the moisture out of a slug's soft body,
06:02much the way salt does, but without souring your soil,
06:05the way a heap of salt would.
06:07You sprinkle a thin, dry ring of borax around the base of the plant,
06:12a half inch wide or so,
06:13keeping it off the leaves and off the stem itself,
06:16and the slugs will not cross it.
06:19Refresh it after a hard rain washes it away.
06:22A thin ring of borax,
06:24and your cabbages and lettuce come through whole.
06:27Mind to keep it a clean, dry ring right around the base
06:30and not flung about over the bed,
06:33both so it does not harm the plant and so you use only the little you need.
06:37An uncle of mine kept his cabbage heads whole all summer,
06:41doing nothing more than this thin, dry ring renewed after the rains.
06:47The third use is against fleas in the carpet,
06:50which counts as a home and garden trouble because the fleas come in from the yard on the dog.
06:55Rather than the deer exterminator, you sprinkle fine borax into the carpet,
07:00work it down into the fibers with a soft broom,
07:03leave it a day, then vacuum it all up.
07:06The borax dries out the flea eggs
07:08and the young hiding down in the pile where the sprays never reach.
07:12Do it once in early summer and once in early fall
07:15and keep the pets and the little ones out of the room while it sits
07:19and until you have vacuumed it up.
07:22The dust gets down deep into the pile where the fleas breed
07:25and the sprays never reach,
07:27which is just why it works where the store products fail.
07:30That breaks the flea cycle without the month-after-month pet store poisons.
07:36The fourth use is against cockroaches,
07:38which every old farmhouse gets a few of.
07:40You mix equal parts borax and plain white flour,
07:44or borax and powdered sugar,
07:46and dust a thin line of it behind the refrigerator,
07:49under the stove, along the backs of the cupboards.
07:52The roach walks through it,
07:54grooms the powder off its legs,
07:56swallows it,
07:57and is finished in a day or two.
07:59Again, you keep that dust well out of reach of children and pets,
08:03tucked back in those hidden spots
08:05where only the roach goes.
08:07The fifth use is a different sort altogether,
08:10not killing a pest,
08:11but feeding the ground,
08:12for borax in tiny amounts is actually a nutrient your garden needs.
08:17The boron in it is a thing that beets and carrots
08:20and cauliflower and broccoli and apples,
08:22and especially tomatoes, need,
08:24in the smallest trace,
08:26to set their fruit properly.
08:28If your cauliflower comes out brown in the middle,
08:30your beets corky,
08:32your tomatoes dropping their blossoms without setting fruit,
08:35your soil may be starved for boron.
08:38The fix is one level tablespoon of borax
08:41dissolved in a gallon or two of water,
08:44sprayed or poured evenly over a good patch of garden,
08:47just once a year in spring.
08:48And here I must give you the firm warning,
08:51for this is where folks do real harm.
08:54Boron is good only in a whisper
08:56and turns poison in a shout.
08:59Do not double the dose,
09:01do not guess,
09:02do not give it twice,
09:03for too much boron will burn your plants
09:06and sterilize that soil for years.
09:09One level tablespoon to a good big patch,
09:12once a year,
09:13no more.
09:14Measured right,
09:15it doubles your fruit set.
09:17Measured wrong,
09:18it ruins your bed.
09:19Respect that line the way you respect a hot stove.
09:23I cannot say this part strong enough,
09:26for of all eleven uses,
09:28this is the one where carelessness
09:30does the most harm.
09:33A man hears that boron helps his tomatoes
09:36and thinks,
09:36well,
09:37if a spoonful helps,
09:39a cupful will help more.
09:41And he ruins his whole bed
09:43for two or three years.
09:44Nothing will grow in it.
09:47The old people understood
09:48that the line between a medicine
09:50and a poison
09:51is almost always just the dose.
09:54And they measured this one
09:56to the level spoonful
09:58and not a grain over.
10:00So, if you take nothing else
10:02from this use,
10:04take that.
10:05A little feeds,
10:06a lot kills.
10:08There is no fixing an overdose
10:10once it is in the ground.
10:13The sixth use
10:14is against the wood-boring insects,
10:17the carpenter ants
10:18and termites
10:19in your fence posts
10:20and porch beams
10:21and firewood.
10:22You mix borax
10:24into warm water
10:25until no more will dissolve,
10:27about one part borax
10:29to eight of water,
10:30and you brush or spray it
10:32onto bare, unpainted wood,
10:34the fence posts,
10:36the underside of the porch,
10:37the sill beams in a shed,
10:40the firewood
10:41before you bring it in.
10:42The borax
10:44soaks into the wood,
10:45and when a termite
10:46or carpenter ant
10:47chews that treated wood,
10:49it ruins the gut
10:50that lets the insect
10:52digest the wood at all,
10:53and it starves
10:55in its own tunnels.
10:56This lasts for years,
10:58so long as the wood
11:00stays out of the driving rain.
11:01The store sells you
11:03the very same thing
11:05in a deer bottle
11:06with a fancy label,
11:07and I will tell you plainly
11:09it is largely the same mineral,
11:12borax in water,
11:14sold for many times the price.
11:16So before you buy
11:18the deer-treated wood preserver,
11:21know that a box of borax
11:23and a bucket of warm water
11:24does much the same work
11:26on your bare wood
11:27for a fraction of it.
11:29Brush it on heavy,
11:31let it soak in and dry,
11:33and your posts and beams
11:35are protected from the borers
11:37for years.
11:39The seventh use,
11:40and you can do this
11:41very Saturday
11:42even with your garden
11:43already in,
11:45is against powdery mildew,
11:47that gray-white dust
11:49that creeps over your squash
11:50and cucumber
11:51and zinnia leaves
11:53and spreads faster
11:54than you can pick.
11:55You mix about a teaspoon
11:57of borax
11:58and a tablespoon
11:59of cooking oil
12:01into a gallon of water,
12:03shake it hard,
12:04and spray it
12:05on the tops and bottoms
12:06of the affected leaves
12:07in the early morning
12:09before the sun hits them.
12:11The borax shifts
12:13the leaf surface
12:14to where the fungus
12:15cannot live,
12:16and the oil
12:17makes it cling.
12:19Three sprayings,
12:20about four days apart,
12:22will most often
12:23turn it around.
12:24I have brought back squash vines
12:27I was about ready
12:28to pull and burn
12:29with nothing more
12:30than this,
12:31the gray dust checked
12:33and the new growth
12:34coming in clean.
12:36You need not start over.
12:38You need only spray,
12:40and spray early
12:41when you first see
12:42that gray bloom,
12:43for it is far easier
12:45to check it
12:46at the first patch
12:47than once it has spread
12:48over the whole plant.
12:50The eighth use
12:52is against weeds
12:53in the cracks
12:54of your sidewalk
12:55and driveway
12:56and patio stones,
12:58and mind me close here,
13:00only in the cracks
13:02where nothing should grow,
13:04never in your garden beds,
13:06for borax will harm
13:08anything green
13:09it touches.
13:10So keep it far
13:12from what you want to keep.
13:13But for the crabgrass
13:15and dandelion
13:16and creeping charlie
13:18coming up
13:18between the paving stones,
13:20you dissolve
13:21about a cup
13:22and a quarter
13:23of borax
13:23in a gallon
13:24of warm water
13:25and pour it
13:26right into the crack
13:27on a dry, sunny day,
13:29and those weeds
13:30are gone within a week
13:32and stay gone
13:33for the season.
13:35My father did this
13:36every June
13:37around the milk house,
13:38no deer jug
13:40of weed killer,
13:41no gloves and mask,
13:43just a watering can.
13:45The ninth use
13:47is against mice
13:48in the shed
13:49or the chicken coop,
13:50and I will be honest
13:51with you,
13:52borax does not kill
13:54a mouse quickly,
13:55it does not.
13:56But mice will not
13:58readily cross
13:59a heavy line of it,
14:01the way they shy
14:02from peppermint
14:03or steel wool,
14:04for the fine powder
14:06gets on their feet
14:07and they do not like
14:08to lick it off.
14:10So you sprinkle
14:11a good band of it
14:12across the threshold
14:13of the shed,
14:15around the base
14:16of the feed bins,
14:17behind the chicken feeder,
14:19and the mice decide
14:20your shed is more trouble
14:22than it is worth
14:23and move along.
14:24It is a deterrent,
14:25plainly,
14:26not a killer,
14:27but it keeps the grain
14:28in the bin.
14:30The tenth use
14:31is against mold
14:32and mildew
14:33on your cellar walls,
14:34the underside
14:35of the porch,
14:36the north-facing siding
14:38where the sun
14:38never reaches.
14:40Rather than the deer
14:41spray bottle
14:42of mildew remover
14:43that is mostly water,
14:44you mix a cup of borax
14:46into a quart
14:47of hot water,
14:48scrub it into the moldy spot
14:50with a stiff brush
14:51and leave it,
14:52do not rinse it off.
14:54The borax keeps working,
14:56drying out the spores
14:57for weeks after.
14:59My grandmother
15:00scrubbed the cellar steps
15:01and walls with it
15:02every April
15:03without fail,
15:04a yearly ritual
15:05as sure as the spring itself,
15:07and her cellar
15:09never smelled
15:10like a cellar,
15:11musty and close.
15:12It smelled like
15:13clean,
15:14cool stone,
15:15even with the potatoes
15:16and apples
15:17stored down there
15:18all winter.
15:19That little yearly scrubbing
15:21kept the mold
15:22from ever getting a hold,
15:24which is the whole secret.
15:25You do it regular
15:26and ahead of the trouble,
15:28not just once
15:29the wall has gone black.
15:31And now,
15:32the eleventh,
15:33the one almost nobody
15:35outside the old farm communities
15:37has heard of,
15:38and it is the reason
15:39I wanted to make this video.
15:41It is for the codling moth,
15:43the worm and the apple,
15:45the single worst pest
15:47of the home orchard,
15:48and the reason
15:49your apples have that
15:50brown tunnel
15:51running to the core.
15:53The catalogs will sell you
15:54traps and sticky bands
15:56and sprays
15:57that cost deer
15:58and must go on
15:59many times a season.
16:01Here is what the old
16:03orchard men did instead.
16:05In late winter,
16:06before the buds break,
16:08late February in the south,
16:10late March up north,
16:11you make a thick paste
16:13of borax and warm water,
16:15about the thickness of cream,
16:17and with a heavy brush,
16:18you paint a wide band of it
16:20around the trunk
16:21of the apple tree,
16:22from about a foot
16:23off the ground
16:24up to about three feet high.
16:26That is all.
16:28The codling moth,
16:29young,
16:30pass the winter
16:31in the bark crevices
16:32of the trunk,
16:32and when they wake
16:34and crawl up
16:35toward the new buds
16:36in spring,
16:36they must cross that band,
16:39and the borax destroys them
16:40before they ever reach a leaf.
16:43One painting,
16:44one tree,
16:45for pennies.
16:47I have done it
16:48on my own few trees
16:49for years,
16:50and most every apple
16:52comes clean to the core,
16:53where before,
16:54half of them
16:55had that worm tunnel
16:56running through.
16:57And think how cheap
16:59and simple it is
17:00against the catalog way.
17:02A single painting
17:03of the trunk
17:04in late winter,
17:05one brush,
17:06a bit of borax,
17:08against a whole season
17:09of buying and hanging traps
17:11and spraying
17:12again and again.
17:14The old orchard men
17:15kept their apples
17:16clean this way
17:17for generations
17:18before ever
17:19there was a spray to buy.
17:21That is the kind of harvest
17:22the catalogs
17:23would rather you bought
17:24their deer sprays for,
17:25and it costs you pennies
17:27and one afternoon a year.
17:29Now let me say
17:30the small, honest word
17:32about how all these
17:33cheap old uses
17:34got forgotten
17:35while you were sold
17:36the deer bottles.
17:38Not to rile you up,
17:40just so you see
17:40the shape of it.
17:42Every one of these
17:43eleven uses
17:44costs you pennies
17:45from a two dollar box,
17:47and against each one
17:48the store sells you
17:49a deer bottle or bag
17:51at ten,
17:52twenty,
17:53forty dollars,
17:54bought again
17:55and again
17:56every season.
17:57And here is the plain
17:59reason you were never
18:00taught the borax.
18:01There is no money in it.
18:03You cannot patent borax.
18:05You cannot own it
18:07nor charge deer for it.
18:09Anyone can buy
18:09the plain box
18:10for two dollars.
18:11So no company
18:13advertises it.
18:14No business
18:15is built on teaching it.
18:16And over a couple
18:17of generations,
18:18these cheap old uses
18:20simply fell out
18:21of the common knowing
18:22and out of the garden
18:23catalogs,
18:24while the deer bottles
18:26got all the telling.
18:27I am not saying
18:29a man schemed
18:30to bury this from you.
18:31No one had to.
18:32It is worse
18:34than a conspiracy
18:34because it is a system
18:36nobody had to coordinate.
18:38It simply pays
18:39to sell a forty dollar
18:40bottle
18:41and pays nothing
18:42to teach the two dollar box,
18:44and so the box
18:45went quietly unmentioned,
18:47not hidden
18:48by any plotter,
18:49just left unsaid
18:51because no one
18:52profited by saying it.
18:54The old people
18:55knew all eleven
18:56of these
18:56because they had to,
18:57and there was
18:58no mystery
18:59in any of them.
19:00So there are
19:01your eleven uses
19:02for a two dollar box
19:03of borax.
19:04The sweet ant bait
19:06carried home
19:06to the nest.
19:07The dry ring
19:09against slugs.
19:10The carpet worked
19:11against fleas.
19:13The dusted line
19:14against roaches.
19:15The measured spoon
19:16of boron
19:17to feed the fruiting plants.
19:19The soaked wood
19:20against termites
19:21and carpenter ants.
19:23The oil
19:24and borax spray
19:25against powdery mildew.
19:27The poured crack weeder
19:29kept well clear
19:30of your beds.
19:31The deterrent band
19:32against mice.
19:34The scrubbed wall
19:35against mold.
19:37And the painted trunk band
19:39against the worm
19:40in your apples.
19:41Eleven uses,
19:43pennies apiece,
19:44from a box
19:45already under your sink.
19:47And remember
19:48the one rule
19:49over all of them.
19:50Measure in level spoons,
19:52keep it from the children
19:53and pets,
19:54and respect that borax
19:56is a salt
19:57that does good
19:58in a little
19:59and harm
20:00in a lot.
20:01Now I want to hear
20:03from you,
20:03and I ask honest
20:05because I learned
20:06the whole country
20:07from these comments.
20:08Tell me in the comments
20:09below
20:10what pest
20:11or trouble
20:12is winning the war
20:13in your garden
20:14this year.
20:15The slugs,
20:16the squash bugs,
20:17the ants,
20:18the worm in the apple,
20:19and which of these
20:21eleven uses
20:21will you try.
20:23And tell me
20:24your county
20:24and your climate
20:25because the pests
20:26differ greatly
20:27across the country
20:28and I like to map it
20:30by where you all
20:31write from.
20:32I read every one.
20:34Next time,
20:35I want to show you
20:36what a single cup
20:37of plain wood ash
20:38from the wood stove
20:40does to the worst weed
20:41in an American lawn
20:43for there is one
20:44stubborn weed
20:45in particular
20:45that simply
20:46cannot survive it
20:48and I will tell you
20:49which one
20:49and how to use
20:50the ash rightly.
20:52Another cheap thing
20:53from your own hearth
20:54that does what
20:55the deer bottles
20:56cannot.
20:57The old people
20:58looked first
20:59to the cupboard
21:00and the shed
21:00when something went wrong
21:02out in the garden,
21:03not last to the catalog
21:04and the store.
21:06And a plain
21:07two dollar box
21:08of borax
21:08did the work
21:09of a shelf
21:10full of deer bottles
21:11for them
21:12because they knew
21:13how to use it.
21:14There is a quiet
21:15freedom in that
21:16in seeing your own pantry
21:18as the first place
21:19you look
21:20when trouble comes
21:21to the rows.
21:22The home that reaches
21:23for the cupboard
21:24before the catalog
21:25is the home
21:26that remembers
21:27how the old people
21:28really managed.
21:29The people who built
21:31this country
21:31with their hands
21:32knew that
21:33and we are only
21:34just starting
21:35to remember it.
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