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Subject: Re: Red Ant Pests
From: "Penny Morgan" <PMORGAN2@nc.rr.com>
Organization: Road Runner - NC
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 01 03:25:46
Message-ID: <MOD$010711.26693@rec.gardens.ecosystems>
References: <MOD$010707.1403@rec.gardens.ecosystems>



I replied to another person the other day with an explosion of ants this
year and looked up some organic solutions in one of my books. There were
several solutions, but the one I liked best was to put little piles of
uncooked grits around the plants and let the ants take them home to digest.
Once ingested, they puff up and you can guess the rest (not pretty). It
seemed the easiest solution. Here are some others listed. Puree hot
chilies and water and saturate the area. Puree orange peels and water and
pour directly into anthills early in the morning. Sprinkle pennyroyal,
camphor, clove oil, tansy, spearmint, or broken eggshells on the soil. Put
boric acid and sugar on a board or rock near the site and cover it from
rain. The ants love to eat it, but don't use if you have children or pets
that might get into it. Lay strips of paper with nondrying glue around the
area and they check in, but never check out. Sprinkle agricultural lime,
bone meal, or powdered charcoal around the plants as a barrier.

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

Penny
Zone 7 - North Carolina
Dave wrote in message
news:MOD$010707.1403@rec.gardens.ecosystems...
>
> My wife has an herb garden here in Wyoming. We have always had ants (Red
> ants with a black butt) but this year they seem way over populated. We have
> cottonless cottonwood trees near the garden which have had aphids, and were
> told the ants are controlling the aphids.
>
> We DO NOT use herbacides and pesticides at all in the yard, not even weed
> killer on our lawn fertilizations. (She harvests the dandylions :) )
>
> Does anyone know a way we can naturally control the ant population (they are
> biting the heck out of her in the herb garden)? We realize controlling the
> ants may imbalance another area of the ecosystem. We don't want to do that
> if the high ant population is natural, and helpful, we'll just live with it,
> but perhaps we have done something unknowingly that has allowed the ants too
> much and could try and balance that back to more normal numbers.
>
> This year I have seen many aphids on nearby sagebrush but not much on the
> cottonwood trees. The ant nest seems to be at the base of one particular
> tree but they are also all over the sage brush mentioned, and throughout the
> herbgarden.
>
> Many or the herbs have little bites and on the underside of those leaves,
> some brown spots. I don't see and aphids though on the herbs.
>
> The only control she has found is to water the garden down good and the ants
> run, then she can tend it for a period.
>
> Thanks for any responses.
>
> Dave
>
>
>