Organic Ant Control In Vegetable Garden
Create a thick line that will force ants to climb over and watch both red and black ants refuse to do so.
Organic ant control in vegetable garden. Laboratory tests have shown that the beneficial fungus beauvaria bassiana is effective against fire ants. In your vegetable garden ants farm aphids even moving aphids to put them on better plants. In the home look out for ant s entry paths counter tops sink and windows. Mealy bugs and scale are other soft bodied insects that secrete honeydew which ants collect.
To repel ants mix equal amounts of water and vinegar either white or apple cider and spray the solution on the ant hills in your garden. Fire ants are social insects. The first idea is one of my own that i read years ago and that is to use cornmeal. Mound drenches are relatively quick killing.
An oil extracted from the seeds of the neem tree is a powerful natural insecticide capable of disrupting the life cycle of insects at all stages adult larvae and egg making it a great. Learn more vinegar uses here. Beneficial microorganisms in the compost tea and in the gut of nematodes seem to be doing the actual control. Fire ants are attracted to the abundant moisture rich organic soil and the wide variety of foods available to them in gardens.
While not the cheapest method sprinkling ground cinnamon along the perimeter of your garden or any surface area for that matter will repel ants but not kill them. The ants collect the sweet honeydew that aphids secrete after sucking plant sap. Beneficial nematodes and diatomaceous earth. Check product labels for specific directions.
Borax is poisonous to ants and pretty soon the ant colony will be no more. If you don t have chalk buy ground cinnamon cayenne pepper curry powder or baby powder and use them the same way. Sprinkle the chalk in a line around your plants or around the perimeter of your garden to keep ants away. The strong scent of vinegar will make the ants avoid the places sprayed with vinegar.
Reapply as needed or after a rain. Ants will readily take the mixture back to the next and share it with others. Crush up some chalk. Products containing the active ingredient spinosad are quite effective as mound drenches and insect sprays with this active ingredient may be used to control many other pests in the home vegetable garden.
What makes this topic tough is that not all remedies work and with over 12 000 species of ants not all ants are technically bad for your home vegetable garden. The red imported fire ant solenopsis invicta buren hymenoptera. The ants make tunnels and nests in your soil and undermine roots and really roughshod it over everything in your garden if they get out of hand. A 50 50 mixture of borax and sugar will help to control ants.
Sugar is what the ants are after and they wont be able to tell it has been mixed with borax.