Ants...

[ottawagardener]

... anyone have any good ways of discouraging field ants from making gigantic cities in their vegetable garden?

[bunkie]

two things. cucumber peelings, and toothpaste mixed with water (like when you spit while brushing!). cucumber peelings wil discourage them, while the toothpaste will kill them.

[grungy]

crushed dried mint and or bay leaves around you plants will help discourage them, and a mixture of granulated sugar and borax in covered dishes (to keep the rain out) will kill them and the colonies once they carry it back to the nest to feed the larva and the queen.

[ottawagardener]

toothpaste will kill them? Hmmm... but will borax or flouride(?) be save for use in the veggie patch? I'm ready to try it.

[mnjrutherford]

We have imported red fire ants. This is the ONLY place where I look to purchased chemicals for aid. We use a commercial product produced by Bayer. It requires about 1 teaspoon to kill a mound. It's a bait type product that is species specific, supposedly. Because of the small quantity and the direct use, I'm comfortable with that.

For a large mound of native ants, you might want to try injecting soapy water. There are battery operated sprayers that have the ability to exude liquids underground, say 2' to 3'. But this is my husbands realm of expertise. He fashioned a wand that he used with the sprayer which we purchased at Lowes or some similar establishment. The soapy water didn't kill the mound, it caused them to move. In fact they moved and divided so that we have 3 or 4 mounds rather than just 1. Native ants probably won't do that.

As for safety, well, your carrots would be prewashed?!?! ;o)

[grungy]

It shouldn't hurt the veggie patch. After all Borax (boron) in small amounts is required by plants and the ants do not take that much. (I generally mix 1 tsp. borax to a quarter to a half cup of sugar and put it out in bait traps of a Tablespoon or so in the area where I want to get rid of the ants. As for fluoride, I really don't know. I personally am not in favor of the stuff considering it with chlorine is the bases for mustard gas.

[robertb]

They don't like being dug up so the more harmless ones are easily discouraged. We don't have fire ants in the UK. Borax mixed with jam or syrup and put under cover so bees can't get at it is a good killer.

[PatrickW]

I find ants annoying, but not particularly a serious problem. When I have problems with aphids, the ants make things worse because they eat the honeydew and fight off predators, but otherwise don't cause serious problems.

You can flood their nests with boiling water, something I've done with quite some success in the past.

I also find ants don't really like healthy gardens with lots of organic material in the ground, rather they prefer nitrogen starved ground that's mostly sand. You can probably go a long way towards discouraging them by keeping your ground healthy.

[lavandulagirl]

I second the boiling water method that Patrick mentioned. It works really well. Also, certain ornamentals that are prone to ants might need to be relocated. For example, once I moved the peonies away from the Virginia veggie garden, I had way less problem with ants in the vegetables. I also second the aphid control. Ants surely do love their aphid farms.

[ottawagardener]

We have incredibly sandy soil on my plot which is both a blessing and a curse. I add leaf mould, compost, and manure regularly which has enriched the soil significantly but still they come.

[plantsnobin]

I have very good soil, not at all sandy, certainly not nitrogen deprived thanks to our bunnies, and I have tons of ants this year. Normaly I am a live and let live type, but the ants are building up under some good plants and pushing them out of the ground. They are going to have to go.

[mnjrutherford]

Well, you have a lot of great suggestions to choose from! Just don't try grits! Drives me nuts when folks think grits will kill ants. ::sigh::