How do you deal with ants?

Get a snake? Then you might need a mongoose I guess.

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This is intriguing. Could possibly get some thin copper wire from inside an old extension cord and wrap it around the lower portion of the stalk, could be instantly observable and seems like a great idea! Wonderful suggestion. Much love

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White Chalk might work too.

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I’ve actually got some scrap 12/2 wire, worth a shot

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my sympathies

go scorched earth & destroy all life around the garden! :fire:

:evergreen_tree:

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Soak orange peels in a jar of viniger for 2 weeks. Then use it as a spray around your entrances and around the pots. Ants hate viniger and orange.

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That’s pretty much what I wanna do lol

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This stuff works, and you can polish your furniture with it too :slight_smile:

Well I just hit the plants with an injection feed hose sprayer with apple cider vinegar. Gonna see what effect that has if any

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Had ants last year crawling my plants. I had put the terro type traps out before then and controlled them…forgot last year. They colonized and farmed aphids in my grow. Be warned they are not your friends

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baits work well when enough is supplied for the control of a population. If the ants are small odorous house ants , they are social colony ants and form satellite colonies like crazy… Multiple queens - the ants will leave main colony and join another… They pick on previous years pheromone trails in wall voids , etc… Id recommend using a fipronil product outside of greenhouse along structures like edges of sidewalks , landscape edging , base of trees as well as the foundation line on the structure… Outside only chemical… Product like termidor from basf or fuse by control solutions are great recommendations… Fipronil is a non repellent chemical and thats exactly what you want for these social colony ants… follow label - mix it a hair under .8 oz per gallon… - full strength the workers can tend to die off before reaching a main colony dep[ending on how far it is they travel… When the products applied and dried - theres maybe 250000 - 300000 little crystals per sq inch… they pick up these crystals on their legs and bodys as they trail through it… Fipronil is ingestion poison so the ants will groom their self or each other being social colony insects to ingest it… As they take it back into a colony the others will be like " here let me get that off you pal"… Stuff just destroys colonizing insects… dont spray around bees…itll jack them up a good one… Typically termidicides are non repellent - n thats what you want … youll be happy you did down the long run

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I’d probaby LITFA… and don’t grow the cultivars that attract them anymore.

Move the infested plants away from your greenhouse and call it a day?

And grow vetch/beans, near your greenhouse so they go eat those instead.

Monocropping is asking for trouble.
Companioncrops man… so easy and so beneficial!!!

Buy ant traps for the ones inside then look around for ant hills and use the borax/water/sugar treatment at the source if you can find it,you can sprinkle a layer of dirt so it’s not open for other insects. I have ant hills on my property and have had luck that way.Maybe put some sticky traps along the walls and in between plants.I . Cinnamon on top of the soil blocks the path, they don’t like it and will avoid it if they can.Some ants have pretty have hard exoskeletons and the D E doesn’t slice through the chitin…Ants will feed off of aphids and sometimes work together so look at your plants with a mag glass to make sure you don’t have them too. Good luck

I’ve got a currant bush that gets terrible aphids and the ants that farm them. I have tried everything over the years but I had success this year with a good smear of Vaseline around each stem and make sure no foliage is near the ground or other plants. No ants or aphids this year.

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That’s all very cute but that poison doesn’t just magically disappear when they’re dead, all the animals that eat the ants after they ingested poison then get poisoned too and it spreads to lots of wildlife like lizards, frogs, snakes, birds, etc. Then those animals get eaten by bigger animals and the poison keeps on spreading…

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We have tons of ants around our house. The only thing I have found that keeps them out is tempo 1% dust. It works very well. The puffer duster helps to apply it where you want it. Keep away from pets!


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They are my biggest plants, hell no! I’m not just tossing away 7fters.

Just part of the school of hard knocks, identify the problem and trial and error till I find a solution how to tackle it now and in the future, also just the pains of learning a new environment to dial in. Just gonna have to do some serious between season conditioning

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It’s also highlighting those individuals with a strong propensity to have natural resistance to the ants. Much love

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Well I’m growing random stuff mostly from members on here

Chocolopez and blue Skittles both from @Ris
And the wolf pack x cobra lips was a @Budderton creation and ohelo berry came from a Sebring offering from 2020 I believe. That’s the 4 that may as well have an ant magnet in em

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