Now that it's too late for this year, I'm finally getting around to asking:
Has anyone else found ants building tubes of soil around the new flower shoots and leaf buds on their strawberry plants? Or any of their plants, especially those in containers? Fluffy, light tubes made of (apparently) peat moss fragments from container soil mix?
If you haven't, I'm going to sound like an ant conspiracy theorist, but here's what I've been seeing over the past season: as a new flower shoot forms, it acquires a tube of soil around it, which climbs with it as it grows. If I leave the tube alone, that shoot seldom bears flowers, let alone fruit, before drying up. Disturbing the tube sends ants running everywhere, just like poking an anthill. If I can inhibit tube formation, either by keeping a layer of coarse sand over the crown of the plant or by placing the container on a plant stand set in a tub of water (so the ants can't get to it), I get my usual sparse but delicious strawberries. If I can't, I get nothing.
My theory is that the ants are building the tubes (in my much-amended raised bed soil or in my containers -- they both have plenty of peat moss fragments) as aphid habitrails. Protected from direct sunlight, ladybugs, and pretty much anything else I can think of, the aphids suck the juice out of the new shoots until they dry up.
Am I the only person whose ants have learned this trick? Am I seeing things? Or did everyone but me already know that ants do this? I know that ants farm aphids and carry them like sheep to green pastures, and I know that ants (especially in warmer climes) build above-ground earth nests, but I'd never seen anything like this before. If this is another gift from global warming, I hate it.
Anyone seen this? Anyone know what to do, organically speaking, about it?
Thanks,
Dawn
ants, aphids, and tubes of soil
Have not seen that type of ant infrastructure here. Maybe my zone is to cold. Could send them all to Boston to help w/ their tunnels. kdcon
Good one kdcon!
Dawn - you must be the most observant gardener ever!!!!!!!!!
Either I'm very observant or the New Ant Empire happens to be starting in my backyard...
I remember when the Big Dig started! At this point, with that budget, my ants would be constructing faster-than-light spaceships.
Ant spaceships! I guess I know what the subject of tonight's nightmare will be.
"ants would be constructing faster-than-light spaceships."
Not " would Be ", they are here ! Remember, dont kill one or a 1000 will come to the funeral. They are really good at cleanup and seldom have a nest in and around plants here. Under rocks and such here seems to be the nest site of choice. The big Carpenter ants are destructive to wood as they remove it and tunnel in it to build their nests. A benefit of living in a cold zone I guess is a lot less destructive, biting bugs than warm zones. kdcon
We all seem to have benefits or problems wherever we live but at least we never have to hear that awful phrase "Mandatory evacuation" and our threats of volcano eruptions is nil as well as earthquakes. Makes the ants look just about insignificant.
Before DG I think I suffered from zone envy but no longer, not when you hear of 100 degree days for seven months!
"Makes the ants look just about insignificant."
Unless their in your pants !
PIRL, your right we don't get the sever weather oher parts of the country get. A few days w/ out power or a flooded basement is pretty mild compared to losing your life, home, etc.. I think about that every time I have a bad weather issue. Kinda puts it in perspective.
My zone is My zone and I plan to die here so I just plant what works and Never Push My Zone ! Well almost never, hardly ever, sometimes, ok ok I push it all the time, Just love to live on the edge. kdcon
I'm with you, kdcon. Here in WNY we did just have the six days without power and the flooding basements, but we still said we'll take this anyday over some of that other weather around the country! Counting our blessings!
(Now if we could just get rid of those ants we keep getting in our house every Spring...)
Once the cool weather arrived I found ants coming in through the bay window where my DH made me a nice big desk. He bought ant traps and like a miracle I haven't seen another one of them.
kdcon - we love Maine and just returned, two weeks ago, from a beautiful trip through Maine, into Fredericton for two days, then back in Maine and Acadia for four days. It's SO beautiful. It's such a pleasure to visit a state and never see a town where you feel you have to "be careful".
PIRL, I live in southern Maine now but come from Jackman up on the Canadian border. all mountains and lakes like your picture. Only thing you have to be carefull of are the Moose, you dont want to hit one w/ a vehicle. We have snow snakes in the winter and they are very hard to see as they are white, the good thing is if bitten you just drink a beer and it counteracts the venom. Got bit 6 times in one afternoon of Ice fishing. kdcon
A neighbor told me that planting mint around the foundation of your house will make ants go away. I had ants in a front flower bed so I stuck in some mint and after a month or so - no more ants.
KD - you're a sly one! Just heard on radio Maine is the only state without native snakes! I promise not to tell on you.
KD - just Googled Alfred, Maine. We were in Scarborough, by Higgins Beach!
Pirl,
What type of town would make you feel you have to "be careful."
ok - it must be early, 'cause I was thinking to myself....snakes in the snow????
I'm with you, Anita, because I was thinking "of course Maine has snow flakes. They're white. And maybe it's a joke, that you can't see them falling because everything else is white." And then the part about getting bitten...I thought, "this guy's really got a good sense of humor!"
Isn't it amazing how your mind will see what it thinks it's supposed to see instead of what is really there sometimes??
Dave - I'll dmail you.
Tell me about it!
Mint? Well, I have a big clump of chocolate mint wintering in a container; if it doesn't get winter-killed, maybe I'll let it loose. They sure weren't scared of marigolds, which are what I use around my tomatoes. Thanks!
And yeah, I miss Boston more and more as it gets warmer and warmer here in my hometown.
I've had fairly good luck using diatomaceous earth to keep ants at bay. Don't mind mixing a little Borax into some jelly and setting that about either.