pests little Black Ants Ain't no BIG Deal?? (Aphids)

Helltaco

Helltaco

As I was preparing my tomato/pepper plot I noticed a few colonies of small black ants.  My extra plants went to another plot that had no ants.  I've read posts (maybe not here) that little black ants cause absolutely NO damage to gardens (I once lost a nice blood orange tree to these little devils).  Now I am fighting aphids on some of my pepper plants in the first plot but I have not seen aphid one in the  plot without ants.  If you see little black ants on your pepper plants look  for aphids on the underside of the leaves.  They may be on one plant and not on one right next to it.  I use soap and neem oil in a jetstream of water to control them by washing them off of the leaves.  The soap will affect their skin so that they can not breath through it and the neem oil does the same.  Most important is to get them off of the leaves that they are sucking the liquid out of the cells on.  Killing them is a good idea because the ants are going to be busy as ants trying to get them back on the leaves, as aphid poop is very tasty to ants. A few aphids are not going to do much damage to a plant, but 500 can become 50,000 real quick, so find the 500 before you have problems. 
 
 Killing ants is another story.  Anyone know that one?
 
Yep, ants can bring trouble, even if they technically aren't problems in and of themselves.
 
The things you have to know about diatomaceous earth are a) get food-grade, and b) keep it dry. Basically turns to mud and becomes useless when wet. There are two basic ways to use it. 1) Sprinkle it in a continuous circle around your plants, as ants won't cross it. 2) Sprinkle it directly onto ants (and many other bugs with exoskeletons) to kill them.
 
It's not toxic - you can ingest it without a problem - so it is very safe for your plants. The theory on how it works is that it gets into tiny cracks and crevices in the exoskeleton and effectively acts like a saw. So not toxic, but harmful to exoskeletons. Won't do anything for aphids, since they're soft-bodied. For those, get ladybugs or neem oil. Note that if you get an insecticide, you shouldn't use it right before getting ladybugs, or it will kill the ladybugs, too. If you're going the ladybug route, better to hit the aphids with streams of water to knock them off until the ladybugs arrive. Most places ship them overnight. I get mine from buglogical.com.
 
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