Ants...really mean ones

clfraser 4/8/2011, 12:22 pm

I believe I have fire ants. Each time I go out to the garden more and more ants are crawling around. I can't seem to find a mound though. I want to get rid of them because they are mean little suckers. Ideas? Especially with no mound?

Miss M 4/9/2011, 2:33 am

I have used Terro ant baits before when I had ants and couldn't tell where they were coming from. They make bait stations for outside as well as inside, and you just put the stations where you see the greatest concentrations of ants.

I have also crushed Borax to a super-fine powder, and mixed it with peanut butter and powdered sugar. I put a flat cake on a piece of paperboard (cereal box), and put it in an ant line. Sometimes, I've covered it with an upside-down bowl that is raised on a few pieces of mulch, in order to keep the rain from hitting it.

Both have worked. What a Face

shannon1 4/9/2011, 3:23 am

I will take your advice as well just recently the ants have come to visit my garden as well.

clfraser 4/9/2011, 7:55 am

Can you use the terro in the garden though? I have used terro in the house and it is great. Also, I got some orange oil and will try that. I am going to try to watch them today and see if they have a mound, but I think they may be burried in the garden/Mel's Mix.

FarmerValerie 4/9/2011, 8:56 am

You can place bait outside the box if you are worried about spreading it in the soil. The ants will carry it back to the mound on their own, and it will work.

Miss M 4/10/2011, 1:41 am

I wouldn't think it would be a problem in the garden, but if you can follow them outside the garden, all the better!

If you find that they are HQ in the box, and you don't want to put the bait in the box, you can sprinkle soap powder of most any kind on them, and then slowly water it in. The soap destroys the surface tension of the water, and the ants drown. The soap doesn't hurt the plants, or at least I've never had it do so. Though I can't say I've used it on food crops besides a few weeks ago on a potted fig tree. It had a boat load of ants in it. I put cheap laundry powder on it and watered it in. No more ants, and the fig tree is fine.

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Ants...really mean ones

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