Getting Rid of Ants

There are many non-chemical ways of controlling pests and diseases in your garden. The use of techniques such as soil solarization and companion planting at the beginning of the growing season can help you keep a healthier pest-free garden and limit the need of using pesticides. More about soil solarization can be found here. For a list of companion plants and more info about companion planting, go here.

To get rid of ants in your garden, you can equal parts of peanut butter, sugar, and boric acid and leave this in a place in your garden for a few days. Make sure you can keep it away from children and pets since the boric acid is toxic. You may have to repeat the baiting for the ants a couple of time until they are gone. Some people may notice that this is also a recipe for controlling cockroaches in the home.

If ants are entering your home, you can place cayanne pepper around their entrance to discourage them from entering.

You can place suet in your yard to attract woodpeckers. Once woodpeckers are attracted to your yard, they will help with controlling your ant problem.

Other ant predators are praying mantids, groundbeetles, humpback flies, and parasitic wasps. You should be aware what these insects look like and treat them as beneficial insects for your garden.

If you have more than one ant mound in your garden or yard, you could shovel part of mound and throw it on top of the other and then shovel up part of the second mound and throw it on top of the first. This way, the ants can be busy taking each other out.

Ants can be bothersome, but hopefully with these tips, your garden will be ant free and stay healthy until harvest time.