Gardening Tips On How To Get Rid of Ants

Spring has finally arrived here at Home Gardening Tips Moncton and we've been receiving a lot of requests from people wanting to know how to get rid of ants and anthills in their garden and yard.

Anthills can be quite unsitely and seem to sneak up on home owners. One day there are no ants and the next they're crawling everywhere and in everything. We found that ignoring them didn't make them go away, they just kept getting bigger and bigger.

As a kid I used to find anthills and then fry the ants using my trusty magnifying glass. I'm a little too old to be doing that and I can't get my head around chocolate covered ants so I had to come up with a better solutions to ants and their anthills.

So here are a few remedies that should help get rid of the ants so you can then get rid of the anthill and get back to a beautiful yard and garden.

There is always one thing you can be sure about with ants, they are forever hungry and are always carrying food back to their queen who hangs out way down in the anthill colony. Knowing that let's give them something that will take a little while to kill them so that they can carry enough back to help kill off the rest in the colony.

I just sprinkle a mixture of about 50/50 baking soda and icing sugar around the entire anthill so they have easy access to it and can get it back down to the anthill colony quickly.

Note: There may be a slight explosion just before they bother you no longer. Okay I made that last part up. I don't think they actually explode but it does kill them dead, quitely.

It's the icing sugar the ants go for but because it's mixed with baking soda they really can't help getting even a little of it and that's all it takes to do them in. The fact they carry it back to the colony means you most likely won't see any ants, alive or dead, shortly after.

We found it was best to put out the mixture during dry weather or it may just get washed into the ground. We did it a couple of times, even though it wasn't dry weather and after a couple of treatments the ants didn't bother us any longer.

You can just take a small jar or bottle and make a shaker out of it by poking a few holes in the lid and you're ready to take action against the ants and all those in the anthill. So it's quick and easy.

This years we gave cornmeal a try. Ants just seem to love corn but they can't digest the cornmeal and starve to death or bloat up and die. Either way it works great.

People further south than we are in New Brunswick tend to use grits where we tend to use cornmeal. They both get the job done by putting the pressure on from inside out.

The ants love it, eat it like little piggies and promptly explode.

Get your ants to move next door.

Lime has a tendency to burn so don't get it on your skin. Well the ants don't like it at all and will get as far away from it as possible. An application of lime over your entire lawn area will work for the entire year.

Another use for baby power.

We no longer have kids so the only use we had for the baby powder was to smooth the hands playing nine ball but now we can use it to deter those pesky ants.

Good ole table salt.

When you through a pinch of salt in the devils eye aim it so that it also blocks the path into your house. Ants don't like crossing over salt barriers.

It's time to draw the line, with Chalk.

Chalk seems to be a great weapon against ants. Use it to draw a line of powdered chalk to keep them away from anything. Pouring a small line of chalk around any entry ways into your house will keep them out.

You can buy Ant Chalk but it has insecticide in it so you may want to skip this one if you don't want to use insecticides.

Boric Acid Powder.

A 50/50 mix of boric acid powder and plain old sugar. Make a slurry in a bottle by adding water to the mix and you're good to go and so are the ants.

Boric Acid is toxic enough that you don't want your family or pets eating it so keep it where they can't get into it.

The boric acid has to be ingested by the ants for it to work unlike some other methods where walking through it will work.

Hopefully this information on getting rid of ants and anthills is beneficial to you.

Ants and their anthills can be rather depressing when their in your yard. Knowing how to get rid of them is key and only takes a few minutes.

Home Gardening Tips