I live in Nova Scotia and I have these awful biting ants in my garden. According to m internet search, they are european fire ants, and have become quite a problem in maine. They are on there way to becoming quite a problem here too. If you don't know what i am talking about, you haven't met them!
http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/2550.htm
They are not related to the sort of fire ants that live in the southern US. These come from Europe, and so they have no problem with colder winters.
I hate going out to work in my garden now. Does anyone on this forum have them? Does anyone have suggestions as to how to deal with them. I use organic gardening methods almost exclusively , but I'm getting pretty desperate!
european fire ants
EWWWWW! Sorry, but you can keep 'em!
I found some organic methods for getting rid of ants but don't know if it will work on those fire ants.
Add borax to sugar. The oft quoted concentration is 50:50 but if you start with that, the ants will not likely be too fond of it. Start with a much lower concentration of borax – maybe 10% and very gradually increase it to 30-40%. The objective is to have the ants take as much borax as possible into the nest and they’ll take it if it is sweet. Put it where you see the ants or on the ant trails. I've used borax successfully in natural ant control experiments.
Ants follow “trails” left by other ants so that’s why you’ll see them in a line. If you put the food on the trail, they’ll find it. Others will go around it but soon you’ll have a line straight for your food source.
Apparently baby powder or talcum powder is not appreciated. I’m told if you dust the ants and the trail, they’ll stop coming.
I have used vinegar to destroy their trails and if you can get it close to the source, they’ll get confused and not come in for a while. I used it at full strength but some folks have diluted it with water. The other benefit to this of course is that it cleans the counters etc as you wipe out the ant trails.
Cinnamon – from the spice rack – is increasingly being used in garden insect control trials and products. You might find it of use to dust the outdoor nests. As an indoor natural ant control I don’t know how it would work but you can only try. It would likely be more effective as a barrier to stop them from coming indoors so if you can sprinkle it around where you see them coming into the house, you’ll likely have better results.
Black pepper has the same story as above. I can’t vouch for either of these products. But if nothing else, your ants will have herbally spicy food to eat.
I’m told that some gardeners have had great luck simply spraying the ant areas – their trail, their entry points etc with insecticidal soap. Some have reported that ivory soap works very well too.
Bay leaves have been used for centuries for ant control. Put a leaf or two behind canisters on the counter, in your silver drawer, food shelves, anywhere ants have congregated. I haven’t had the heart to take any leaves off my bay tree yet but this is reputed to work.
Whole cloves are supposed to do the same thing. They’d keep me away for sure.
Peppermint sprayed around the edges of your house and ant entry points will deter ants as will growing peppermint and other mints in your foundation planting. I caution you against this as you’ll quickly be over-run with mint instead of ants. But spraying a mint extract or heavy mint tea might help; as long as it leaves a minty smell behind it is strong enough
A reader recommended giving ants a bowl of uncooked Cream of Wheat cereal. Apparently the product swells in their stomachs and kills them. Personally, I don’t believe this – right up there with the old feed chewing gum to moles/voles to block them up hoax – but I pass it along for your amusement.
Diatomaceous earth will cut up ants as quickly as it cuts up other small insects. You can scatter this around and it is not dangerous to humans or pets unless breathed in quantity.
How about red chili pepper paste or hot curry paste? Spray it or mix it into a paste and put it on their trails.
There is some non-scientific experience that says that putting a product containing aspertame (nutrisweet etc) beside the ant hill kills them off. This works as a nerve poison.
Thank you Jen for the information. I've notice a lot of different ants around our home this year. We have Flickers around from time to time. Will any of these things affect them? - Lynn
makes me want to go buy some gum.... sheesh
What are flickers?
lightning bugs
Oh, just make sure to treat where the ants are.
Thanks Jen, for all the suggestions. I'd heard some of them before.
I have such a large infestation, (where they are is everywhere in my back yard, which is quite a large one for a city property!) that none of them will make a big impact, but maybe I could use some of them to make gardening a bit easier on me. Just about every plant I touch, including the weeds, is covered by ants. If I pull a weed up I get swarmed! We tried the borax last year, but we had to put out lots of traps and add new solution every day, it got very tiring, and if it made an impact it wasn't obvious. Maybe I'll try again if I can devise an easy to use trap to put the borax in. Lately I've been sprinkling cinnamon on the plants I want to work on and on my hands. It might be helping a bit.
I think I'd much rather have a mint infestation!
Flickers are a type of woodpecker that eats ants. They dig them right out of the ground.
Oh, I'll take some of those flickers.
I believe the correct term for them is Yellow-Shafted Flickers. Sounds kind of obscene, but they are one really cool bird. Their call is "whicker, whicker, whicker" and they also climb trees just as other woodpeckers do.