As I was working in my garden beds yesterday, amending the soil and turning it over with my hands, I got bitten a couple times by fire ants that apparently mistook my waist-high beds for luxury skyline condominiums. We can't have that. Since I have a deep-seated hatred of fire ants and desire nothing but their extinction, I did what any sane person would do:
I killed them all.
I killed them all.
Last weekend, I visited death upon 15 fire ant mounds on my property in the form of Ortho Max Fire Ant KILLER, but I'm hesitant to use those granules of destruction in the same soil in which I grow my food. To that end, I whipped out my handy bag of....
Made from the shattered skeletons of diatoms (tiny oceanic crustaceans), the razor-sharp pieces get caught in the joined segments of the ants and deliver thousands of tiny slices to their exoskeleton, allowing their insides to slowly dehydrate and finish them off. Ironically, it is perfectly harmless to us, even if ingested. The one caveat is that you don't want to breathe in the dust, because the fluffy shards can cause irritation to the lining of your lungs.
Protecting your crops from griefing mobs is nothing new to Minecrafters. If diatomaceous earth has an in-game equivalent, it would have to be the use of cacti as mob traps. The creepers, zombies, and skeletons wander into the maze of sharp objects trying to get to you, yet they all fall victim to the spiked barrier.