Need an organic ant control ?

I have strawberries growing in my earthboxes and they have a mess of ants going after my strawberries ! Does anyone know of an organic way to rid the ants ? Any pesticide like Ortho Bug-Be- Gone says to wait 21 days before harvesting ? Strawberries won't wait that long .

Maybe something here will help you, Tplant. :-)

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/380107/

Thanks Pete2. The grits sound good. Will try..

Yep.... was gonna say grits too. Thats what I use. If I can I usually try to disturb there nest a little bit and then go to town sprinkling the grits all over the place.

I usually give them a few hours to devor up the grits and then I go back and water the heck out of em. Then they blow up and die. It also good too because the ants also bring aphids into their nests to over winter and bring them back out onto the plants when the weather warms up, and with no ants to feed or care for them they too die off.

Grits, Ican't stand to eat em being a northener spoiled on oatmeal and cream of wheats but sure do love em for use in the garden.

Good luck on getting rid of your ants and if you don't get em all the first time just repeat.

Thank you, thank you! I've never heard of this trick, and I'm very grateful for the information. I managed to bring an infestation of tiny ants *inside* this fall. I'm pretty sure they are in the pot with my key lime tree. We've tried several kinds of baits, etc, but nothing knocks them back for long. Fortunatly, they don't seem to have discovered the rest of the kitchen or than pantry, but I'm afraid they're going to show up beyond the sunroom any day now! I am going to sprinkle grits in any pot where I see an ant tomorrow morning, and then I'll water all the plants! Gosh, I am hoping this works, as I hate to resort to the hard core chemicals in the house.

I have always used diatomacious earth successfully. Had ants take over my garden shed - I think because the grass clippings that stick to blades of various lawn equipment. Thought I could work around them but over time it got to where I could not pick up anything in the shed without getting bitten by ants. So I took everything out of the shed - swept it - and dusted it with diatomacious earth
- put everything back in - no more ants. sorry ants but it is my shed.

What is diatomacious earth and where do you buy it ?

Diatomacious earth is made up of the "skeletons" of zillions of planktonic algae (brown algae I think, but this is off the top of my head) called diatoms. I believe it's usually dug in areas that used to be sea beds long, long ago. Diatoms come in the most amazing forms, many of which are spiny, so think of diatomacious earth as being very similar to finely ground sharp little bits of glass. Critters like slugs (and ants) hate crawling (or walking) on it. Your LGS should carry it.

Had another thought about diatomaceous earth.... I believe it's also used as a filter medium, and I'm thinking maybe I've seen it used in pool filters, so you might find it somewhere that carries that sort of thing.