"Ophelia" wrote in message
...
Rusty_Hinge wrote:
The message
from "soulman" contains these words:

My first veggie patch and i found some red ants in it today, around
me onions. Are they going to be a pain? and if so how would you get
rid of them? I do have a 2x dalek like compose bins near by that get
black ants but
i just turn it every now and then and it keeps them away.

If you can get by with them in the patch, you could leave them -
they'll predate on a lot of pests.

If they become a pain (or lots of little pains?) mix some borax and
sugar, add a little warm water and heat till it turns to syrup.

Put down in (say) crown cork stoppers or small containers, covered, so
that only anta can gain access.

Similar to Nippon, but cheap as chips.

Do ants do damage in the garden? If so, what plants will they hurt?


They tend to do secondary damage following, say, slug and wasp damage, and
frost or mechanical damage. Occasionally, they will undermine a plant by
building their nest under it, but I've hardly ever heard of a case of this.
They also 'farm' and 'milk' aphids; they enjoy the sugary excreta of aphids,
so offer protection to the aphids in return for their 'honeydew'. Sounds
nicer than poo, doesn't it? :~) This can confuse inexperienced gardeners,
who believe they need to treat their ant problem when, in fact, it's their
aphid problem that is at the root of their troubles. Because ants like
sugary foods, they tend to be attracted to ripening fruit.

Ants do not like water, so the OP could try seriously wetting the nest site.
To find the nest, watch the ants to see where they come from and return to.
The soil around the nest is very fine, having a sandy quality. It is easy
for me to spot a nest in my heavy clay soil; not so easy for someone on
sandy soil.

Spider