Ant Control

[rustylady]

Ants don't actually eat your plants (like caterpillars or slugs and snails do), but they do cause damage by tunnelling under the roots and causing them to dry out. Any ants found climbing are either eating or (more likely) milking greenfly or blackfly - they actually "farm" them by moving them from plant to plant and eat the sugary solution produced by the aphids. They hate having the ground disturbed, so regular cultivation may persuade them to go elsewhere. Boiling water is useful to a certain extent if you can find the nest and it's not near any plants you want to keep as the boiling water will kill not only the ants it touches but also any plants it touches.

[Protea]

Why is nobody using ant powder. I had a real problem with ants in the greenhouse last year. I bought a container of ant powder, sprinkled it on the staging and in a few days they had disappeared.

I do use ant powder (or spray) but just not on the soil where i'm growing my crops!

Rustylady - the ants on my chillies do seem to do some damage (but not to anything else) - to the flowers mostly. They're not farming aphids as i check my plants religiously and also they're just running all over the place rather than 'tending' something, its very bizzare, but the garlic granules seem to help!

[Hazel at the Hill]

Hmm,,,food for thought on this one - I've tons of ants at the Hill (an Ant Hill haha!) but still not sure if they are baddies, per se...

[Cutecumber]

We have very sandy soil and it's ideal for ants, unfortunately. They find their way into all my pots too and make channels which make the water drain even faster, so I have to be vigilant. I've tried soaking them out and it hasn't worked.

This year I may try the biological control (as we don't use chemicals in the garden). It is a nematode which irritates the ants but does not kill them - they just move on, apparently! I think it could be useful for pots. It is available at all the usual biological control suppliers such as Green Gardener and Just Green etc.

I must stress that I haven't used it myself, so this is a heads-up rather than a personal recommendation. I haven't yet checked whether it is suitable for food crops.

[Dobby]

kill the Queen Ant

The way to kill the Queen Ant is to mix 1 part Domestic Borax with 1 part sugar The ants will take the lased sugar and feed it to the Queen dead Queen then the ants will leave and you can deal with them as you wish
I think a shot gun might be a bit much thow

[Madasafish]

The only ants I trouble are those near the house as they invade(ant powder!). Had an invasion last year .. got bitten when typing on PC by ant from a small nest under bookcase! (remove furniture and spray!)

As far as veggies/flowers are concenred it's a waste of time.. as we have fields on 2 sides and lots (millions?) of ants.

No apparent damage.. they use aphids to milk the dahlia: I use soap solution to remove those (or by hand).. rest I cannot be bothered with.