Hi All,
Can anyone suggest a solution to a problem I have, it's ants. I have ants
eating my strawberries, by plums are infested with them as are my apples and
pears.
I have used grease bands on the fruit trees and stakes to keep the little
blighters off but they are still there.
My compost heaps are also infested with them and although I turn them
regularly this doesn't seem to deter them.
HELP!!!
Tony

Rusty Hinge wrote:
The message
from Ben contains these words:


Whatever works or doesn't, the general consensus seems to be that you
can't get rid of them, the best you can hope for is to make life so
unpleasant for them that they choose to move somewhere else, which is
perhaps all you need.


You *CAN* get rid of them, but I only do so when they are being a real
pain, as they do far more good about the garden than harm.

Just get some borax from the chemist and mix it with sugar - about two
measures od sugar to one of borax - and heat it with enough water to
just dissolve all the solids, making a thick syrup. Leave this in
shallow dishes where only the ants can get at them. Bottletops and
similar work well.


What good do they do exactly? Regardless of any beneficial effect they
may have, I think their numbers are getting out of control in my garden
so I'll try the borax and sugar idea and see how I get on. I've tried
similar things in the past involving little plastic bait traps with
borax and sugar in, and haven't noticed any effect on ant numbers - in
fact they seem to steer clear of the things!

Another thing I've looked into is soil type, to see if there's anything
you can do to the soil to deter too many of them coming back (our whole
area is teeming with them, so I'm bound to get them back). It appears
they are not at all fussy about soil type.