Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
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Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
from zackey on 03/20/2015 11:24 PMI went out to my compost pile to dump my compost pail and there were fire ants at one end of it. So bummed out. I don't want to use any chemicals there. Any ideas how I can get rid of them?
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Re: Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
from katjaqu on 03/23/2015 05:04 PMHi, Maggie,
Pour yellow cornmeal on the ground where the ants are.
They can't digest the cornmeal when they eat it so it will get rid of them without using chemicals.
You may want to put some around your tomato plants to control the aphids.
Ants raise aphids for food. Usually on garden plants, so if you control the ants, you control the aphids.
Happy Gardening🐜🐜🐜🐜
Re: Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
from zackey on 03/24/2015 06:45 PMThanks! Have you tried this? Not sure if you even have fire ants where you live. I've heard it works and I've heard it doesn't. I have some corn meal in the pantry, so it's worth a try.
Re: Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
from katjaqu on 03/25/2015 11:01 PMWe have large black ants and some large red ants, but they are not Fire ants.
Last year was a really bad year here for ants.
My cousin told me about using Borax and sugar to kill the ants, which I did.
It worked real well but I didn't want to have something that could be harmful to the birds and wildlife so I decided against using it.
I found the cornmeal thing online. I had about a half a box of Quaker yellow cornmeal in the pantry so I tried it in the garden around tomatoes.
Also I used some around the Peonies and it works.
I guess you would need to eliminate any other food source to make sure they only eat the cornmeal.
Re: Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
from katjaqu on 04/02/2015 10:03 PMHey Maggie,
I was just browsing around and found homemade this Fire Ant Killer recipe.
Here's the link.
http://frugalmamaandthesprout.com/2015/04/homemade-fire-ant-killer.html
Re: Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
from Backwoodswife on 04/02/2015 11:56 PMI've heard cinnamon works well to keep them away, maybe worth a try:)
Re: Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
from zackey on 04/03/2015 03:16 AMI was ready to put ant killer on it two days ago and they are all gone! They loved the chopped half sweet potato. I must have chopped it in half when I was harvesting. They are also gone that were in a big hill close to our house. I was ready to douse them with chemicals, but they were gone. Also they are gone around the front porch. We feed our outdoor kitties there, If they left a few pieces they were covered in minutes by fire ants. Not sure what happened, but I am very thankful! I hate using chemicals.
Re: Ants in my compost pile! Help!!
from Backwoodswife on 04/03/2015 03:46 PMYay! So happy they left you:)