Introduction
Ants are one of the very contributed insects that can wipe away all caterpillars, whiteflies, or fleas on your plants. But when its number is getting out of control, have you ever thought of how to get rid of ants in the garden?
Spring is coming, and it’s the perfect time for ants to wander around your juicy fruits and vegetables. If you don’t wish to witness a damaged garden in your area, here are some tips to clear out the ants.
Ants and your garden
Many ant species exist in your garden, and not all ants are technically bad or good for your vegetable. Some carry out the job of cultivating, aerating, and consuming insects, while some will grow out of numbers and cause property damage.
Advantages of ants to your garden
No matter how large a garden you own, a sufficient number of native ants present near your plants is good to keep around. In some cases, when they are not infesting the area, these diligent workers will control pests, improve pollination rates, and enrich a healthy ecosystem.
Control harmful pests
Most homeowners understand this benefit of ants for their garden. You might not have known this, but most common garden ants are carnivorous varieties that eat harmful pests.
They eliminate the eggs hatch in summer and disturb the feeding process of other pests like grubs. Ants are predators and the sources of nutrients for other pest-controlling creatures such as lizards, frogs, or birds.
Instead of finding ways to kill ants, you might want to encourage them to stick around and balance the number of harmful pests in your garden.
Improve pollination rates
Like bees, groups of ants can disperse seeds and assist with pollinating since they often roam from one plant to another, seeking food sources and ant nests. Even though this pollinated action is unintentional for ants, it still helps gardeners achieve consistent fruit crops each year.
Aerate the soil
As ants start digging into the soil to build their colony, the plant roots buried deep down the surface receive sufficient oxygen, water, and nutrients. Its natural tunneling path also speeds up the decomposition of leaves and dead insects, fertilizing plants and vegetables.
After aerating the soil, ants will keep on bringing pebbles and particles buried under the soil surface to the top.
Disadvantages of ants to your garden
Ants will only be helpful if its population does not outgrow the other creatures’ people. When that time arrives, all of its benefits will quickly turn into a nightmare.
Revive garden pests population
It’s no doubt that ants can clear out all the harmful insects in your vegetable garden, but in some circumstances, ants can carry aphids or mealybugs to your plants. They are especially attracted to the sweet sticky nature that aphids have.
As a result, they will carry these sticky sweet foods back to the nest, increasing the presence of pests in your garden.
Weaken root systems
While aerating the soil with the tunnels that allow water to soak into soil easier, ants might dig too many tunnels that weaken the root system. And eventually, the large population of ants may cause damage to the soil structure.
There is also another case when the ant’s nest is built right under the plants. Its roots will soon decay from the dry condition caused by the nest.
Property damage
Not only does it damage the condition of the soil, but ants can also reduce the quality of wooden trees. Carpenter ants’ habit is to hollow the wood and build their home inside.
That trees will eventually die due to the loss of nutrients and support from the trunk and branches. If your house is made of wood, you might want to double-check those wood’s condition.
This article will not only answer the question of how to get rid of ants in the garden, but it also works for treating ants inside the house.
This video shows you the best way to get rid of ants in your garden:
Is using chemical pesticides a better method than organic?
Organic control is a more favorable option for gardeners. Because using too many chemical pesticides will add up unwanted harmful substances to your plants, significantly when you’re growing edible vegetables.
The chemical reactions might also happen to interact with your water source and develop some severe reaction in humans if someone drinks it before filtering or boiling.
Using organic pesticides is also kinder to the environment since you help reduce soil and air pollution. There has been a growing concern over the years about how farmers are being exposed to the garden’s chemicals.
Therefore, the right way to treat your garden and have better care is to get rid of ants in the yard naturally.
How to get rids of ants in your garden naturally?
Unlike grub worms that can be rid of by using neem oil, milky spores, and other organic insects treatment, ant infestations are different. These insects are too small and too many to be located.
However, you will want to take action immediately once you witness an immense level of damage to your plants. Here are several non-toxic methods that can answer your question of getting rid of ants naturally outside the house.
Mixed cornmeal
This method is listed at the top due to its inexpensive and widely-used technique to reduce the ant population effectively. You can find these natural ingredients in any supermarket (feel free to substitute for baby powder instead), and the procedure is simple.
Put a few handfuls of cornmeal with motor oil vinegar where ants often wander around, and the mixture will get rid of ants in the garden immediately. Remember to have the cornmeal mixed with vinegar or poison like boric acid, or the result won’t be the same.
In this case, slow-acting insecticides are highly the recommended bait. The solid cornmeal mixture will encourage the ants to take the “food” back to their nest. And since only larvae in nests can eat solid food, the insecticides will poison the larvae before they hatch.
Borax
Borax is the type of active ingredient with no flavor and smell, perfect for luring ants. You can mix them with sugar or jelly, and the ants will take the sweet along with the baits back to the nest, feeding it to the larvae and queen.
Simply put the borax and powdered sugar mixture near the nest or dissolve them into the water and pour them around your garden. The borax consumed by the ants will block their digestive systems and wreak havoc on their exterior.
Keep in mind that you will need to mix the borax with other sweet substances to lure the ants. It can be jelly, peanut butter, or cotton candy depends on your choices.
Diatomaceous earth
Using diatomaceous earth is one of the very infamous ways to kill ants in the yard. This substance comes from diatoms, a dead sea creature that absorbs hydration inside the insects’ body and dries them out.
You don’t need to mix diatomaceous earth with any external substance since it’s enough to wipe out an ant colony. But this method only works if the diatomaceous earth is dry; therefore, you might need to re-apply after the rain.
Grow ant repellent plants
Growing plants to repel ants is the technique that answers most questions about how to stop ants. If you want to avoid all the methods of killing ants and want to prevent them from entering your garden, planting peppermint, rosemary, tansy, cinnamon, etc., might be helpful.
These impressive plants have the overwhelming scent and peppermint oil texture perfect to be an ant deterrent.
Conclusion
Before finding a way to prevent ants from entering your garden, we should appreciate their ability to aerate soil and control other harmful insects. However, when these friends of ours grow out of control, we must find the most effective ways to get rid of ants in the garden.
Instead of using synthetic chemical ant baits that might danger your soil or water supply, the four methods above will surely help you protect your plants.
