Getting Rid of Ants in the Garden

There are several varieties of ants that can actually benefit your garden, but there are other species that present a danger (fire ants come to mind, for example), and you’ll be wanting to get rid of those as soon as possible. Even if the ants aren’t poisonous, sometimes they can really damage your house (like carpenter ants).

But how can you get rid of ants in a garden? Here are some steps that may help you create an ant-free garden environment.

Vinegar is one chemical treatment that you can use in your garden without harming any of your plants (or pets either). Mix the vinegar in a three to one ratio with warm water, and gently spray it all over the edge of your garden. If you’ve already found the ant mound, you can spray the mixture right on it.

Another environmentally friendly treatment is to spread black pepper around the perimeter of your plants. Because ants won’t go across black pepper, they can’t get to your plants – and the pepper won’t harm anything you have growing in your garden.

Have you gotten rid of the pesky pests? Now it’s time to take some chalk and grind it into a powder. Then, spread that powder all over your garden. This will keep ants away. It’s important to note that this will not get rid of an active infestation, but it will deter ants from entering your garden once you’ve spread it around.

Another powder that will keep ants out of your garden is baby powder. While most people enjoy the smell of baby powder, ants don’t seem to be able to stand it. If you sprinkle it around your garden, ants will not go anywhere where they can smell it.

One more powder that will get rid of your ant problem without harming the plants in your garden is cornmeal. Ants will flock to it and eat it, but since ants can not digest cornmeal, they will die relatively quickly.

Is the idea of killing ants repellent to you (no pun intended)? If you don’t want to kill your ants, but you want them out of your garden, open a jar of honey and put it in a nearby tree. Note: don’t put this on someone else’s property, as they won’t want a swarm of ants around a honey jar. However, if you put it in your own tree, the ants will swarm to it and live near it, leaving your garden alone. As long as you have honey in the jar, that is.