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Ant's....?

bamaboy1975

bamaboy1975

There is a gang of ants in both of my raised beds. In the soil and on my plants. Is that normal or do I need to NUKE them?! What's the best way too?
 
KILL THEM! I had ants, aphids, and the ants turned on the plants and started cutting them down. Never would have beleived it if I hadnt seen it with my own eyes...
 
Diatomaceous earth is good to use. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth
 
And the GOOD news is :dance: If you have ants nesting in your garden - you have excellent drainage!
That's super for peppers. geeme is straight on with his recommendation of Diatomaceous earth.
It rips the hell out of ants, spiders, scorpions and slugs. It just needs to be reapplied when it gets wet.
 
A non-lethal method is to put down coffee grounds. The ants don't like them and will eventually move on to a different location, plus the coffee is a mild fertilizer. Ants are good for the soil, but it is definitely better to not have them actually IN the garden where they can bite you.
 
+1 for what AJ said...we were just talking about that the other day...then I noticed ants on a few of my plants...and literally overnight, aphid explosion. I mixed a cup of water, 1/2 cup oil, tsp dish soap, and a couple tsp of white vinegar. Seems to have knocked the aphids on their collective ass...fast. Now to get rid of these damn ants...
 
Here is something I found VERY interesting about ants and aphids. (Aphids Suck!)

http://www.ghorganics.com/page9.html#Aphids:

It is from this website about companion planting, which is also very informative:

http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html

If you opt for DE, make sure it is horticultural grade and not the pool filter DE. Also, wear a mask when applying it because it doesn't gel well with lung tissues.
 
Yea I would try the non-lethal method first, I always get a bad feeling in my gut about killing innocent things. Ants are just plain smart and have a place in this Bio-Cycle...We Homo-Sapiens are the dumb-asses for not taking them into account! The dio-earth thing Sounds good and might work and if it don't well there is always the other route. Setting back and feeling like a mini-Hitler... Be well
 
Get some Andros ant bait and sprinkle it where you see the ants path of travel ,they pick it up and carry it back to their nest and they ALL feast on it and it kills the entire colony , kinda like Jim baker and the koolaid everybody drank ( All dead)
 
Some ants love to herd aphids.
+1 on the DE. It won't totally kill off ants, but does wonders on soft body nasties.

If you don't have acres of plants, an old timey shaving brush is gentle and easy on the underside of tender plants.

Don't use the wife's makeup brushes. :mope:
 
Well im battling aphids right now (hundreds down from thousands) ive had to cut all my leaves from my plants.
It started out with ants, then came the aphids by the thousands.

The ants actually bring the aphids to your plants to farm them, ive seen ants carrying the aphids to the plants.
I tried the coffee ground method & it didn't work for me (i used tons of it) the only way im able to control it is like i said removing all the leaves off my plants so they cannot breed & make more & then spray with insecticide.

The only good ant is a dead ant, be quick of they will bring the aphid & then your in real trouble.

Mezo.
 
growhot36 said:
Here is something I found VERY interesting about ants and aphids. (Aphids Suck!)

http://www.ghorganics.com/page9.html#Aphids:
Click to expand...
A quote from that link you posted:
"Put a bright yellow plastic pan in a strategic spot in the garden. Fill it a third of the way full with water. Aphids are drawn to the yellow color, land on the water, sink and drown"

I don't know how effective this is, but I never knew that so I'm gonna give that a go even though I don't see any aphids. just in case.
 
It is a Sucking Conspiracy! At the very beginning of Spring I checked my big plant and they were all over it and had that sticky nasty HoneyDew crap everywhere, I took a water hose and knocked most of them off and them used standard garden spray cause there weren't any peppers or flowers yet, followed the ant trail, found a big nest. set up some claymore ant bombs and got em in a crossfire with some ant spray. Well my plants recovered well but the sucking aphids and conspiring ants did not!

Yep +1 too "Aphids Suck!"
 
Aphids do suck. I have about 750 Lady birds left. Will they attack the aphids and the ants? Will they battle it out?
 
^ we use those indoors, usually getting overrun by ants around April if we don't. BTW they do dry out but it's just corn syrup and boric acid IIRC, a little water will revive them if there aren't too many dead ants inside. After I realized the ingredients I started mixing my own and putting it on an upside down plastic lid with another lid mostly covering it.
 
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