Anyone? If this is the wrong forum to ask this, please let me know!

Thanks. :)

There are quite a few organic approaches from which I've read/researched.

In no particular order

1. Spray yard with Molasses. (Fire ants are protein eating ants and seem to really hate sugar.)

2. Used Coffee Grounds. (Free from starbucks. Supposedly they deter ants.)

3. Diatomaceous earth (consists of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae. It causing insects to dehydrate. Not sure of the effectiveness when wet)

4. Boric Acid (often used as a relatively nontoxic insecticide, for killing cockroaches, termites, fire ants, fleas, and many other insects, Again, Not sure of the effectiveness when wet)

5. Beneficial nematodes

The only one I have personally used is Boric acid. Do a search in Garden web for Fire Ants Organic or natural etc.

Hope this helps

You cannot use boric acid on the lawn. It is toxic to plants. Fire ants are omnivores and not only will not avoid sweets, but LOVE sugary tidbits.

Look for the newer, organic ant BAIT products with Spinosad as the active ingredient. You want to make sure that you locate a bait and not a spray, etc. Spinosad ant baits will help get rid of the entire mound in a few days.

Diatomaceous earth seems effective only when dry, but it's harmless to humans (wouldn't breathe it in, though). I've been using it on the front lawn (a colony so huge that you sink into the ground a bit when you walk on it) and it seems to have reduced the population but then it rains and I have to start over. It also harms beneficial soft-bodied insects.

However in the back yard I found another colony under some tarp I was using to kills some sod in preparation for a new bed. I lifted the tarp and sprinkled the stuff onto the ants and their eggs, then replaced the tarp. When I looked a few days later, there were a LOT fewer ants and they had moved the eggs to a spot that wasn't covered by the stuff.
I feel kinda sorry for them but they were in such numbers that I could not have used that patch for anything.

I'll try working with the DE a bit longer before resorting to the heavy hitters.

Boric acid will ruin your soil. It'll also run off into the water system to do further damage. I did use it to take out some carpenter ants that were under the shingles at the back of the shed. It is not likely that a lot of the acid will make it to the ground. Not sure it's working, either.

Try beneficial nematodes. It seems to be working for me. With all the rain, I've yet to see a big ant mounds anywhere in my yard compared to my neighbors. I had a couple small ant mounds but they seem short lived. My guess is that the ants came in contact with beneficial nematodes and carried them to the mound where nematodes killed the carrier host and multiplied before infecting other ants in the mound.

I wouldn't use boric acid on the soil at all.

Try UNSULFURED blackstrap molasses at the rate of 2 oz per gallon of water per 1000 sqft and see what happens. I've used it as well but i wasn't trying to get rid of ants. I was simply trying to break down thatch more quickly.

I've had great success vs. fire ants using three different techniques

1. Beneficial Nematodes. After putting them down I'd see the occasional mound bubble up, but then disappear a few days later after they become infected

2. Drenching the mound with a mix of molasses, orange oil, and spinosad

3. Grits...yes just grits. Not sure why it works, but my theory is that the corn in grits kills the fungus in the mounds that the ants use to help them process food. Much in the same way that corn meal attracts beneficial trichoderma fungus that kills brown patch.

I'm linking an article on organic methods of combating fire ants. According to the article, neither grits nor diatomaceous earth is effective against fire ants.

They don't address nematodes or molasses.

Here is a link that might be useful: Article on getting rid of fire ants

Sounds like a bigger expert than me, but I can't argue with the results. I've tried grits on 3 mounds this year and all three have been gone within a week. Perhaps it was mound disturbance or another spurious factor, but I'm going to use them again when my nematodes run out.

Thanks so much for everyone's advise. I did some research in to the beneficial nematodes, but I think they would have a hard time, and not be as effective in our very dry AZ weather. Right now, I put out a couple of ant baits. (They have spinosad, though I can't remember the name)

Oh, and also, they're not fire ants. They're black ones, but they sure do bite!

We bought a bag of DE for the entire lawn, and once the rains here stop, we'll apply that too. That stuff likes the dry weather, and we sure have a TON of that here!

Out of curiousity, does anyone know the science behind the molasses method? That piqued my curiosity.

To everyone who replied, thanks again.