How to get rid of Ants

Even though ants play a critical role to the environment, ants can also become pests as well when they invade your garden in large numbers seeking shelter and food. An ant invasion is the last thing you might want in your garden as this can really have some very serious consequences. In most cases, gardeners will reach out for intense chemicals and pesticides to eradicate them. Pest control using chemicals is potentially harmful and it is essential that you think about alternative ways of getting rid of ants from your garden. Ants however do good things to the environment to some extent such as eating the larva of spiders, fleas, fleas, bed bugs, clothes months and silverfish. So, while you are planning to get rid of ants from your garden, it is essential that you consider controlling them rather than complete elimination. For the ants that you need to get rid off from your garden, there are some natural, effective and easy ways of warding them off from your garden. These offer you a more economical, environmentally friendly approach of getting rid of ants and ensuring that your garden stays ant free as described here below:

1. Use Vinegar

Ants use their antennae to perceive smells which helps them determine not only the direction of the scents but also its intensity as well. If forager ants find food in your garden, they will mark a trail which leads them to the colony and many other ants follow the trail to access the food. By making use of white vinegar on the paths that you know are followed by the ants, you will be able to disrupt their scent trains. This makes it quite hard for them to be able to travel back to the source of food they have been invading in your garden. To do so, just mix the vinegar with some water and spray around your garden everywhere you find the ant trails.

2. Use sidewalk chalks

If you are a keen observer, you might have seen that ants do not mix with sidewalk chalk. As such, this gives you a natural solution to keeping the ants at bay from your garden. When ants stumble on the chalk, the white stuff covers them on their body. It is also said that the minerals found in the sidewalk chalk like talc kills the ants and thus offering you an ideal way of eliminating the ants from your garden. However, this option is more effective when it is combined with another method.

3. Ant honey plates/pots

Getting rid of ants from your garden completely might not always be an easy thing as most of the methods you could be using to exterminate them might not just be working. In such a case, a better idea would be try diversion which might probably work to your favor. If the colony seems to have set up a camp at your home, diversion can help minimize their disastrous effects on your garden. By laying a honey plates/pots somewhere else, the ants will know that they have a much better source of food than struggling to get some from your garden. Once you clean up their scent trails and use some deterrent on the entrances, you can be sure that the ants will stay for a long time without creeping back to your garden.

4. Using essential oil entrance blockers

Ants are known to dislike strong smells very much because they greatly mess up their communication and scent trails. As if this is not enough, essential oils cover their bodies when they are crawling through it and you can take advantage of this to get rid of ants from your garden. It is even advisable that you try experimenting with different blends of oils to find out which ones works best in your garden. Focus more on spraying the essential oil on the entrance areas which ants use when finding their way into your garden. Keep repeating as the scent continues to fade and you will be able to keep them at bay from your garden.

5. Ant balls

When it comes to a point where spraying the essential oil solution doesn't seem to work, it is essential that you think about busting the ant balls out. Use of cotton balls as a barrier for keeping away ants from your home can be very effective. However, place the cotton balls in a place in your garden where your pets will not see them as a snack and feast on them.

Items Needed

1/2 cup of sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons Borax(Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. Powdered borax is white, consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water)

1 1/2 cups warm water

Cotton balls or paper towel

Instructions

1. Mix the Borax and sugar together until well combined.

2. Add the mixture to your warm water and mix constantly until the powder has been completely dissolved.

3. Seal the mixture in a jar or container for future use, and use only what you need in the next steps (and save the rest).  It is important that you clearly label the jar, as it will just look like water.  Do not leave this where children can get to it.  (Because this is such an easy solution to make, however, I only kept what I made until after the ants had been gone for a week or more.)

4. Fill some jar lids, milk caps, or other shallow containers with cotton balls or a wad of paper towel.

5. Add the sugar-Borax solution to the prepared lids making sure to soak the cotton balls (or paper towel).

6. Use boiling water and soap

Sometimes, the only way to keep your garden free of ants is by   killing them. If you realize that there is a big nest of ants at your garden, killing them instantly might be the most ideal way. In this regard, use of hot water is the most effective way to eradicate such ants in a non toxic way.

7. Avoid storing unused red soil

Final tip is not to store unused red soil in your garden area.  Ants like red soil very much to make their homes.

8. Other googled recipes

In  a blender add 4-5 hot peppers along with vinegar and dish soap.  Then strain the ingredients. Now add vegetable oil to the mix and shake well to emulsify it. Add required amount of water and spray on the ants. That's it.  But see that you should not spray on plants.

Please leave your comments which recipe has worked you well to benefit other user.

Source: Various internet sites. books & personal experience