From ants in the garden using folk remedies. Fighting ants in the garden using folk remedies

Sergey Ivanovich

You can make a “knight’s move” and get rid of ants using a non-standard method. Just bring their cousins, forest ants, to the site. The most interesting thing is that forest ants will not stay on your site for a long time. At most 2-3 weeks, then they will run away to their females - they cannot live without their girlfriends. But they will compete for the anthill with their garden brothers during this time and, being by nature more hardy, will drive the garden ones out of the area.

This is how they do it here - they just take their shovels and go into the forest. They collect soil with ants from the top of the anthill and pour it into some kind of linen bag. Of course, they tie it tighter. The females are deep in the ground, so don't be afraid to pick them up with you. When you come to your place, simply destroy the anthill of garden ants from above and pour earth with forest ants into this place. If there are enough ants brought by you, then there will be a massacre, don’t worry, and after 2-3 days you will forget about the anthill, and after 3 weeks you will completely forget about the ants. If the forest ants are no longer strong enough to win the first time, then it’s no problem either - immediately run into the forest for help.

If the population of ants is not very large, then the simplest and most effective remedy, tested by many gardeners of our partnership, is to loosen the place where they settle and pour boiling water over this place. In some cases, you have to do this several times, due to the very deep location of the masonry. Usually the average depth is about 0.5-0.8 meters, but this is in the Moscow region, maybe somewhere deeper.

I suffered for a long time: I poured boiling water on it, dug up and moved nests, scattered garlic, etc. Then a neighbor shared a recipe: 10 liters bucket of water + 2 glasses of cheap shampoo + 2 glasses vegetable oil+1 liter of table vinegar. Mix this entire explosive mixture and apply it through a sprayer into the depression previously made with a peg in the center of the anthill. So I did. Then covered it with dark film for 72 hours.
Three days later I opened it, and there were dead bodies lying around. I didn't think about them anymore.

Elena Pavlova

My aunt suffered from this problem last year. They appeared, and then aphids immediately appeared on the vegetables.
She then did this: first she treated the leaves and shoots of infected vegetables with aphids, and then she decided to take on the ants.
It has long been known that ants, among other things, generally cannot tolerate strong odors, but then she read about this method in one magazine and decided to make them a simply “hellish” mixture.
I took: to 400 gr. laundry soap (after putting it in warm water so that it softens a little) added 2 tbsp. l. carbolic acid (can be bought at any pharmacy, it is also called phenol, sold as a disinfectant) and 10 tbsp. l. kerosene. Having mixed all this thoroughly, I added water to 10 liters. After loosening the anthill a little, I watered it.
Somewhere after 2 waterings, the ants became smaller, and after 3, they completely disappeared.
In addition, she also sprayed the tree trunks to completely repel the ants. This is how we got rid of the ants.

Valentina

At the beginning of the season, my husband and I began to notice quite often small anthills around the base country house. For those who are not familiar with this pest, it is dangerous for fruit trees, since they breed aphids, the main thing is not to let them near the trees, and we have just enough of them on our site: plum, apple, and pear trees. My husband tried pouring kerosene and potassium permanganate, tried many folk remedies, but these pests built new tunnels two meters from the old place... A neighbor recommended the drug Anteater. Surprisingly, one small bag, which costs around 15-17 rubles, was enough to get rid of pests. Sometimes it is still necessary to use special preparations, especially when controlling pests. This is the experience of getting rid of ants.

Maxim Anatolyevich

You're probably right. However, if folk remedies do not help, you can only use insecticides. Just take into account all the risks of introducing aggressive chemicals into the soil. Although, on the manufacturer’s website they state that the drug does not accumulate in the soil, acts selectively, and does not affect soil microorganisms and earthworms. It's worth a try if nothing else helps.

Russian

All this nonsense is aimed at fighting anthills. The ants will then not make noticeable anthills - they will make them underground and continue to carry aphids. Everything has been tested and is not effective, and buying different baits and gels is expensive. In addition, after trying it once, they understand the danger of the bait and don’t take it anymore. I made bundles of wormwood and tied them around the trees - it’s nonsense, they just kept running. It’s not clear why they write all kinds of nonsense. There is nothing to frighten modern ants - they move to another place, that’s all. But a lot of ants stick to glue, then they move over the backs of the dead. We need something else.

When I noticed that different ants were walking around the garden, I found their anthills and moved a handful from one to another)). In general, I dropped off guests here and there. Both anthills disappeared after some time.

There were red ants in the apartment, I couldn’t get rid of them with anything, even terribly expensive and terribly toxic products specifically for ants.
I bought a 1 liter bottle of oleic acid and put it in the closet. And there are no more ants anywhere in the apartment. It turned out that oleic acid is a danger signal for ants, and they leave from where there is such a smell. I have never even opened the bottle; it is still sealed, although not airtight. And I don’t smell any smell from it, even from under the cap of the bottle itself.

On Wikipedia they write that oleic acid is odorless, completely non-toxic to humans, and is even found in many edible nuts in amounts up to 50%.

Although this is an apartment. At the site, apparently, you will still need to open the bottle of acid.

Help get rid of small red ants that sit in the ground, eat up roots and kill plants. They eat flower bulbs, strawberry roots, tomato roots, peppers...

Please advise how to remove ants? How to deal with ants in the garden without harming your pets? The question is not new, and I know that there are many methods of struggle.

I advise everyone who is faced with the problem of settled ants to use the Ecokiller insecticide. At one time this drug helped me a lot.

Hello, dear gardeners! There are so many pests! Here are the ants - it seems very beneficial insects, but can cause harm to plants and all the work of a vegetable grower or gardener will be wasted. Therefore, we will learn methods on how to get rid of ants on your property or dacha.

Great workers or pests?

From school textbooks we know that ants are the most hardworking insects. But when they appear in the beds, all plantings suffer from their hard work! These insects love to settle in. They are attracted by excellent living conditions - warm, humid, enough food. Black ants most often inhabit greenhouses and hotbeds.

If the greenhouse is made of polycarbonate, then these insects rarely choose it for settlement, more often a glass greenhouse or a greenhouse under a film.

Undoubtedly, there are benefits from them. Making passages, black ants loosen the soil and fight spider mites. But they also cause a lot of harm. They eat fragile plant roots and attract hordes of aphids. And aphids promote development various diseases.

They are also harmful to the person himself. Their bites can cause severe allergies. Summarizing their harm, we need to think about how to get rid of them. Red ants appear less frequently. They do not bite, therefore they are less dangerous to humans and are excellent pest control.

Insect repellents

You can use special chemicals.

Many gardeners do not want to use chemicals, so they resort to traditional methods of control.

Folk remedies are absolutely harmless to both plants and humans. The first method of control is loosening the soil in the beds. If this does not help, you need to look effective means, tested by gardeners.

First, find out the preventive measures:

pollination of beds before planting with ash and ground pepper;
put a jar of jam where uninvited guests will crawl in and stay there, sticking to the jam.

Boric acid helps effectively fight insects. It is added to sugar syrup, then containers “with treats” are placed throughout the greenhouse. Mix sweet syrup with 20% acid in equal parts. You can roll minced meat into balls, add a packet of boric acid, and place them at the roots of the plants.

The death of insects will cause delicacy from and yeast. Instead of honey, you can take jam and mix it with yeast.

But people feel sorry for destroying these useful workers. To drive black guests out of the greenhouse, place cloves and branches near the plants. coniferous trees, pieces of salted herring.

They do not like the aroma of cloves, mint, cinnamon, spoiled lemon, bird cherry, wormwood, parsley, and tomato leaves. Prepare the infusion:

dry raw materials - 400 g;
boiling water - 0.5 l;
water - 10 l.

Brew one of the plants with boiling water, pour it into a bucket of water, leave for a day. After this, spray the ground and anthill.

Prepare a garlic solution and pour it into the anthill:

collect garlic peels and put them in a bucket;
add crushed head of garlic;
fill with a bucket of water.

Let this mixture sit until the morning, then fill the insect passages. After this, pour sunflower oil into the passages using a large syringe.

Vinegar and soda can also be useful for expelling goosebumps from the greenhouse. Take 50 g of vinegar and soda, pour the insect passages. After 2-3 days they will disappear.

To prevent small pests from taking a liking to your greenhouse structure, Plant mint, garlic, fennel, and mustard around. You can also plant repellent seedlings between the beds in the greenhouse itself.

In the fall, loosen the soil around the structure and sprinkle ash. Caustic soda, mixed with freshly slaked lime, scattered near the greenhouse, will also scare away uninvited guests.

How to find a female queen

The entire colony of individuals is controlled by the female. The gardener's task is to neutralize the queen. To do this, place an old teapot in an ant heap, place pieces of material in it, and sprinkle them with sugar. The female will move to the sweet spot, and all the individuals will come after her. Hurry up to evict the entire colony to get rid of it forever.

Insects in the garden

If a small accumulation of wingless individuals is noticed in the garden, then this is even beneficial for the soil. They loosen the top soil layer well, enriching it with humus and microelements.

But if there are large colonies of individuals in the garden, then a serious struggle awaits. Effective method:

Loosen the pile until there is a layer of eggs.
Pour boiling water over it.
Pour in soda, ash, and salt.
Cover with dark film.
After a week, dig up the area well.

Reading reviews from a gardener, we can say that the safest method is millet. Scatter the cereal around the nest of individuals, sprinkle directly on the nest. Millet eaten by insects is not digested in their digestive system and they die.

If you notice at least one individual on a strawberry, immediately place it among the plants. mint, parsley, tansy leaves, pour powder g carts, mustard s. Near the colony settlement, place cotton wool soaked in turpentine.

Place sweet baits. Recipes:

Two cups of water with sugar and ½ tsp. boric acid;
Two tbsp. borax, 1 tbsp. l. honey, 100 ml water, 3 tbsp. Sahara.
Mix everything, put it on the lids, place it near the pile.

If the mounds are located in a bed with strawberries, then sprinkle them with salt, soda, ash or pour a solution: 1 liter. water, 1 tbsp. soda plus 30 g of flaxseed oil. If the nest is far from the garden bed, then water it and then dig it up. Before flowering, you can treat: 1 tbsp per 10 liters of water. ammonia.

How to protect apple trees

Fruit trees also suffer from pests. Ants can lead not only to crop loss, but also to the death of the tree. If the apple tree has become a habitat for ants, then aphids will soon appear on it.
If the insects are red in color, then they only bring benefits to the garden, since they do not spread aphids and destroy pests.

The apple tree is planted in the spring when the buds are swelling and in the fall when the fruits ripen. Traditional methods of control are described above, but if there are a lot of insects, then you cannot do without chemicals. In early spring, use a 3-4% solution of Bordeaux mixture or iron sulfate. During the budding phase - 1-2% Bordeaux mixture.

If the currants are damaged

Aphids and ants attack currant bushes, which can even cause them to die. Experienced gardeners always plant garlic under every currant bush. You can place cloves of garlic or arrows of an odorous plant under the bush.

To keep the currants clean, when the snow is still on the ground, they are watered hot water.

The following solution will help save you from aphids: Pour soda into the water, pour in liquid soap, and spray. An excellent recipe is a strong decoction of potato tops.

Pests often damage roses and peonies. If you notice small pests on peonies, then take immediate action, otherwise the flowers may dry out without blooming. Spray with Diazinon, Anti-Ant or other products.

Finally: If the ants are not annoying, then there is no need to harass them, because they also benefit the garden. If there are whole hordes of them, then you know how to get rid of ants in your country house.

Ants in the country and in the garden bring not only benefits, but also harm, eating berries and fruits and breeding aphids on plants. Therefore, solving the question of how to get rid of ants in a summer cottage is very important for all owners who take care of their garden.

Where do ants come from?

You can find it everywhere both in the city and in suburban areas. The most common in gardens and vegetable gardens:

, or earthen ones, about 5 mm in size, brown or black, build nests in the soil, in the root system of plants, love to breed aphids;
, or myrmica, - 4-6 mm in size, brown-red in color, can settle both in the house and in the summer cottage;
have a size of 7-15 mm, build large colonies from branches and grass, they reach a length of 1 cm;
– up to 2 cm in size, nest in tree trunks, dry stumps, less often in wooden buildings, making passages, they can turn even logs into dust.

Quite fast and able to live in a variety of climatic conditions. Up to 10 thousand people can live in one anthill, among which there is a single queen that lays offspring. Unlike workers, who do not live long, about 1 month, females can exist and reproduce for more than a year.

If there are several female lionfish in a colony, then after fertilization they move to other places and lay ant larvae in the soil, on grass stems or under the bark of trees. As a result, new nests are formed - this is how ants get into summer cottages and garden plots.

An anthill and ants on a site are one of the links in the ecosystem, without which the balance in nature is disrupted; they are capable of causing plants, including:

Interesting!

One is capable of consuming 2 thousand different insects and their larvae per day, bringing relief to many plants in nature from pests.

At the summer cottage:

very often nests are made in completely inappropriate places: in berry bushes, in the middle of garden beds, which inhibits the normal growth of surrounding crops;
black ants feast on and damage the buds of roses and other flowers, berries, fruits, etc.;
, growing it on cultivated plants, incl. on ornamental and fertile bushes: in raspberries, which is why they die;
carry plant seeds throughout the summer cottage, incl. and weeds, spreading them throughout the territory.

Based on the listed beneficial and harmful habits of these insects, each owner must decide for himself whether it is worth exterminating ants in his dacha using a pesticide. Or simply drive them away from places where they harm plantings using folk methods that are more popular in gardening.

Ant Control Strategies

There are 2 main methods for dealing with ants in the garden:

Scaring them away and preventing them from entering the garden and summer cottage. These humane methods include: relocating small nests; the use of plants and substances that have a pungent odor that can repel ants.
Destruction of ants on the site using traditional methods and chemical poisons, pesticides.

Struggle folk remedies with garden ants is carried out in many ways, many of which have been known for centuries:

To get rid of an anthill, you need to dig up all the soil in the area quite deeply, adding lime.
One of the proven recommendations on how to remove an anthill is to fall asleep in its passages or. According to gardeners, ants in large quantities move to another place.
Sprinkle a mixture of wood ash and lime along the ant paths and areas where they stay.
Prepare a decoction of tomato tops, parsley and smoked fish - and pour all this over the ant colony.
You can remove ants from the area by watering the entire garden with a solution in the proportion of 1 tbsp per 8 liters of water: the cultivated plants will receive additional fertilizer, and the smell of alcohol will drive away the ants.
To get rid of insects, you need to know: the pungent odors of sunflower oil, herring brine, tomato tops, garlic, red pepper - all this is used to treat anthills or laid out along paths on the ground and their places of residence.
It is recommended to use some plants against ants, which repel them with a strong smell: tansy, valerian, mint, wormwood, parsley are planted between the beds in the garden.
How to get rid of an anthill in a simple way, using boiling water, which is poured into all the passages, and it is better to do this in the evening, after the entire population has returned home.
An effective folk remedy for garden ants - treatment summer cottage a mixture containing soap, carboxylic acid and kerosene, which are filled with warm water. It is necessary to spray the mixture over all dacha plantings and in the garden, as well as poison the nests.
A mixture is made of laundry soap, shampoo, vegetable oil and 2 tsp. , with which you need to spray all places where ants accumulate and stay. However, such a solution should not be sprayed on the seedlings so that they do not slow down their development.
A similar mixture is made with the addition of fragrant herbs (wormwood, celandine, St. John's wort, tansy, etc.), vinegar and detergent; after mixing, it is infused for a day in a cold room, filtered and diluted with warm water. The mixture is sprayed on all fruit and berry crops in the country and on anthills.

There are a variety of methods to destroy ant colonies. The use of Velcro, which is put on young shoots of fruit crops: pears, etc.

, which will attract insects, allow them to be caught and then destroyed. For such purposes, the following recipes are applicable:

honey is diluted with water and applied to dish sponges, which are laid out along ant paths: after they sit on the “sweet sponge,” it is thrown into boiling water;
place jars of honey or sugar diluted with water around the dacha in places frequently visited by working individuals: once they get into it, the sweet tooth drowns in syrup, unable to get back out;
Cans of sweets or canned meat with leftover food and meat bones are also effectively used as bait - all this attracts them in large quantities.

In order to exterminate ants on a personal plot, you can also use toxic substances: borax, brewer's yeast, etc., by eating which the pests die after a certain time.

The most popular recipes using poison:

Mixture 1 tbsp. sugar, 2 tbsp. hot water, a third tsp. borax, after cooling, add 1 tsp. honey - the bait must be changed every week.
A mixture of sugar, honey, borax and water in a ratio of 4:1:0.5:4.5 is poured into jars, which are placed in an inclined position in areas visited by ants, at the rate of 1 jar per 3-4 m2.
Boiled potato balls with eggs (3 pieces each) with the addition of 1 tbsp. vegetable oil, sugar and 10 g of boric acid - laid out in habitat areas.
Add ½ tsp to 2 tbsp minced meat. borax and spread along ant paths.
Dilute 1 tbsp. V cold water until creamy, add 1 tsp for taste. jam: put the mixture on pieces of cardboard, then in the places where the ant population is located.

Chemical control methods

If traditional methods do not help, then the fight against ants is carried out on garden plot using pesticides. The negative result of using chemicals will be the destruction of not only harmful, but also all beneficial insects.

The most popular chemicals: Muracid, Muravyin, Grom-2, etc., containing the insecticide diazinon, which is an organophosphorus compound that causes paralysis in pests after 2-4 days. They come in several forms: granules, tablets, powders, gels or liquids;

The most effective way to destroy not only working ants, but also is the use of poisonous baits, after eating which and carrying small particles to their nest, the entire population of the anthill is poisoned.

All chemicals have a long-term effect: the destruction of ants occurs within 3-4 weeks.

Any chemicals and poisonous drugs are considered highly toxic substances, so they are dangerous to humans and pets who may accidentally eat them. When working with such substances, care should be taken and the possibility of their release into local water bodies should be considered.

Let's take a closer look at popular insecticides:

represents a toxic liquid in an ampoule, which must be diluted in 10 liters of water; the resulting solution should be enough to treat up to 20 anthills, i.e. It is practically possible to destroy all pests on the site. Muracid has an important advantage: it is harmless to plants and natural soil flora.
– the product is available in the form of a powder or liquid, from which it is necessary to prepare a solution at the rate of 5 liters per 5 m2 of area; after the ants ingest it, they begin to have convulsions, their limbs become paralyzed, and asphyxia occurs.
- a drug sold in the form of a syringe with a gel that has an odor attractive to ants. The syringe contains 20 mg of the substance, which is enough for 50 m2 of land: using a thin spout, the gel is applied in a dotted line on the paths and next to the anthill.
Phenaxin, a powder that is sprinkled directly from a package with holes near anthill holes, also destroys aphids, and can kill ants, if not forever, then for sure for 1-2 years.
Gels or, which are applied to cardboards and laid out next to the nests.

On a note!
To combat ants in a summer cottage, chemical preparations are used in various forms release. The only type that will be difficult to use outdoors is a spray or aerosol, since it only works through direct contact with the insect.

Preventing the appearance of ants in a summer cottage

The best remedy for pests in a summer cottage or garden is to prevent their occurrence, which must be carried out regularly by digging up the soil with the addition of ash, planting fragrant plants that repel insects from delicious berries, fruit bushes and trees.

In an effort to find food, the ant plague gradually spreads throughout the entire area of the site. Insects do not disdain anything: they destroy seedlings, fruits, flower buds, berries, plant seeds, and eat plant roots. Fighting ants who threaten to leave the plot without a crop - it's a difficult and thankless task, because their numbers are huge, underground ant tunnels (shelters) can be measured in kilometers, and new mounds of anthills appear on the soil surface at a rate of 1-3 per week. And yet it is possible to cope with this disaster.

Why is it so important to rid your garden of ants?

In summer cottages, there are usually two types of ants: red myrmica and black garden ants. Insect nests are a complex system of oval chambers connected by passages. Very often, ants build an above-ground hill above the underground nests, the so-called “ant heap”; it is well warmed up by the sun’s rays and the ant offspring develop much better in it.

The biggest danger posed by ants is considered to be the reproduction of aphids.

IMPORTANT! It is the ants that cause the reproduction of aphids. It is much more difficult to cope with and this insect causes much more harm!

They are very sensitive to this harmful insect, protect it, promoting its active reproduction (they breed aphids), as they feed on semi-digested juice, which is periodically secreted by aphids. As a result, hordes of aphids destroy young shoots and leaves of fruit trees, seedlings, and flowers of berry crops. It’s easy to guess that after such raids, you can’t count on a harvest.

Another problem caused by ants is damage to the roots of fruit trees. Insects actively undermine the roots(especially if their house is built at the base of the trunk), the tree gradually withers and dries out after a while.

Ants are not averse to eating already ripe fruits and berries. They especially love strawberries.

Methods for controlling ants in a summer cottage

If the main asset on your site is the garden - the result of many years of work, you should take care to limit the access of ants to trees. After their invasion, they may suffer root system tree, and also aphids will appear, which the ants will breed on young shoots and leaves.

There are several ways to block ants' access:

whitewashing with lime. The lime will repel insects and discourage the desire to climb trees. For greater effect, it is worth treating the soil around the trunks with lime;
duct tape. By wrapping the trunks with sticky tape, you can protect the trees not only from ants, but also from harmful caterpillars and small beetles;
foil skirts. You can make foil skirts around the trunks. First, they wrap the lower part of the tree with foil, then make a kind of skirt on top, which has sharp edges. do not have flexibility, they will not be able to overcome sharp edges;
oil barrier. A barrier for ants can be a band of any vegetable oil (preferably hemp oil, but getting it now is problematic, so you can use flaxseed or sunflower oil). Insects will not risk crossing the oil barrier.

If seedlings, vegetables and berries suffer from ants, more serious measures should be used. measures aimed at the complete destruction of harmful insects.

Chemicals

How to get rid of ants in the garden and on the plot? Fighting ants with the help of chemicals is almost useless, because most of these insects are located underground; among other things, they provide themselves with a lot of shelters and can hide in them at any time.

IMPORTANT! All insecticides are toxic and serve primarily as a threat to crops and fruit trees grown on the site.

However, many summer residents choose this harmful, but not painstaking, method. A wide variety of chemicals can be purchased at the “Everything for the Garden” store. Remedies: “Thunder”, “Muracid”, “Trinol”, “Karbofos” will help solve the problem, but not for long. Insects remain on the plots in unlimited numbers; when treated with insecticides, only a small part of them will die, while the rest will continue to reproduce successfully.

Photos of chemicals:

Traditional (humane) methods of getting rid of insects

destruction of aphids. This small insect serves as a source of sweet food for ants. If she doesn’t exist, the ants will gradually disappear from the area;
transfer of “ant heaps”. The simplest and most effective way. The anthill is carefully dug up with a shovel and moved away from the summer cottage. In every ant house there is a queen that lays eggs, from which larvae and adults then emerge, haunting summer residents. It is also advisable to dig up the soil under the anthill (there may be larvae in it, as well as the queen ant itself) and take it outside the dacha;
repellent odors. Ants cannot tolerate strong odors. Garlic, cloves, laurel, anise, onions, valerian, and marigolds will help you get rid of unwanted guests. Pieces of onion, garlic, ground cloves, anise can be placed around anthills, as well as on insect paths. Plant valerian and marigold flowers throughout the area;
detergents. Many affected summer residents share their methods of scaring off these harmful insects. They recommend: sprinkling the anthill and paths with ash, lime, tobacco dust, bone meal, soot, red pepper;
cleanliness of the dacha area. To make the fight against annoying guests more effective, you need to clear your area of half-rotten boards and rotten stumps, where these insects like to gather. You need to collect fallen fruits and berries in time; they attract ants with their sweet aroma.

Less humane but effective ways

poisonous baits. Usually baits are made using borax (1 teaspoon) and products especially loved by ants ( chopped meat, egg yolk, honey). Pieces of this mixture are laid out over the entire surface of the area. Having eaten, the ants die after a while. You should work with poison extremely carefully, wearing gloves;

IMPORTANT! Poisonous baits can attract not only ants, but also pets, which owners bring with them to their dachas!

millet cereal. Insects simply adore millet and pounce on it with pleasure. But they are not able to digest cereals, so they die after a while. Millet should be generously sprinkled on anthills, as well as paths along which insects move;

boiling water. Fill nests, heaps, passages with boiling water.

HOW TO GET RID OFANTS ON THE LANDSCAPE

Red ants(sometimes called pharaohs) are very dangerous neighbors who like to settle in dachas or country houses. Such proximity must be suppressed in the most severe manner, since it threatens trouble for all inhabitants of the garden plot.

Fighting ants- a complex task that requires an integrated, competent approach. Incorrect treatment carried out to destroy ants leads to a rapid restoration of the number of ants and to the development of their addiction to the group of toxic substances with which the room was treated.

In addition to moving into your home and causing damage to your home, these hard-working insects can cause damage to your garden trees and garden plants. The fact is that most species of ants build their nests deep underground, in the root system of trees. If ants take a fancy to a tree and decide to live under it, most likely such a tree will live no more than 2-3 years. If the ants' nest is in the garden, plants will not grow either on it or near it.

Another “bad habit” of ants is their love for aphids. The ants catch these "ladies", pull them into nests and milk them there, thus infecting more trees and soil with aphids. Therefore, it is imperative and advisable to do this without the use of chemicals to fight ants in your garden plot, since chemicals can harm not only ants, but also all living things around, including plants.

How to get rid of ants in your garden?

Ants most often settle in areas where the soil is rarely cultivated because, like all living things, they do not like to be disturbed. Therefore, the more often the land is dug up and cultivated, the less chance of an anthill forming in it. To rid trees of ants, you need to treat the trunk with a strong solution of lime, so that the lime covers not only the trunk, but also the ground around it.

If the ants have already taken a fancy to your site and there is already an anthill in your garden, then it’s time to take decisive action. The anthill should be dug up and not just on the surface of the earth, but deep. To finally get rid of garden ants, you need to destroy their nests, then they will leave your area on their own. In order to destroy the nest for sure, add lime, ash or ash to the ground, or more of everything, and carefully dig up the area where they live.

THE MAIN THING IN FIGHTING ANTS...

Choose the right goal. First, you need to remove the root cause of the ant population explosion, namely aphids. Its disappearance will greatly simplify the task. At the same time, you should use agents directed against the ants themselves.
Pressing one by one is an absolutely futile task. Those tireless workers who drag loads somewhere near the terrace and in the beds, heavier than their own weight, are workers, or rather, wingless, sterile females. On the one hand, there are tens, even hundreds of thousands of them, on the other hand, the existence of the population does not depend on them. Having stirred up the anthill, one also fails to complete the task. It is imperative to destroy the “queen” and her offspring.
...properly use the “weapon”. Winged individuals of both sexes appear in nests once a year.
The “males” die soon after mating, and the “ladies” shed their wings and go in search of a new nest to take their place on the throne and lay eggs. After two to three weeks, larvae emerge from the eggs, which after four to five months turn into pupae and then into adult insects. The very next day after birth, the ant begins to work: first it feeds the queen, then, as it grows up, it takes the position of nanny, builder, scout, caterer, and security guard. At the slightest danger to the “queen” and the offspring, the entire anthill immediately mobilizes. Therefore, it is important to deliver the drug directly to its destination, without touching the “security alarm sensors”.
Usually poisonous powders are used: they are eaten by working individuals (or absorbed through their outer integument) and are carried “on their paws” to the nests.
...to stop in time. All living organisms are involved in complex chains, and if one of the links is removed, the ecological balance will be disrupted. The gardener is unlikely to find peace if he completely exterminates the ants: he will have to fight more “bloodthirsty” enemies.

PRODUCTS FOR COMBATING GARDEN ANTS

Various preparative forms of diazinon are widely used against numerous leaf-eating and sucking insects: aphids, ground beetles, mole crickets, grain flies, common beet weevil, gnawing cutworms, bedbugs, moths, etc. This substance belongs to the class of highly active organophosphorus chemical compounds, affects nervous system insects and causes paralysis.
Diazinon has a strong contact and intestinal effect (rapidly absorbed through the mouth and skin) and leads to the death of ants within the first two days after treatment. At the same time, the consumption is minimal: one bottle (10 ml) of “Anteater” is enough to water 50 sq.m., which is about 200 anthills. The product destroys both adults and larvae. In treated areas, ants do not “tread down” paths again and do not make new nests. Protective periodaction - at least three weeks.

FOLK METHODS OF FIGHTING ANTS

Ants are repelled by the smells of parsley, tansy, laurel, anise, mustard, and tomato tops. The leaves and stems of these plants are laid out on ant paths or tied around tree trunks like a rope. Mint and valerian are sown between the ridges and around the trees. The ants, sensing the “aroma,” will move to another place. Ant paths and mounds are sprinkled with baking soda or areas where insects accumulate are treated with ash, taken in equal proportions with crushed tree bark and lime.
Watering anthills saturated solution boric acid with the addition of granulated sugar (4 tablespoons of sugar per glass of liquid).
Mix dried crushed oregano grass with sulfur (1:2), sprinkle it on the places where the nests are located, or dig the mixture into the ground.
Ant heaps are watered with water and kerosene (10 tablespoons per 10 liters of water). Ant trails and areas where ants accumulate are shed with water and vegetable oil.

In the evening, when all the “ants” are in the houses, the anthills are dug up and poured with boiling water. In this case, it is necessary to stir up the nest completely and only then shed it thoroughly. In this way, the queen of the family and the larvae are destroyed. Unfortunately, all these folk remedies only repel ants. Only insecticidal preparations completely get rid of them.

A few more ways to deal with ants

The following method of fighting ants deserves the attention of gardeners. Strips are cut from sheepskin and raspberry shoots are tied at a distance of 13-18 cm from the ground. The strips should be wool facing out, and the latter is lubricated with crude carbolic acid. The smell of this acid thoroughly drives out ants and saves berry bushes from the invasion of small color destroyers and bush berries.

This method can also be used. A shallow groove is made around the anthill, then carbon sulphide is poured over it and the anthill, the latter is immediately set on fire, as a result of which it lights up on all sides and in depth. Insects can no longer escape death; they don't even have time to run away.

To exterminate ants, anthills can also be filled with boiling water or kerosene.

You can rub the places where ants accumulate with garlic or onions, prepare bait: 3 tbsp. l. dissolve 1 tbsp water. l. sugar and 1/3 tsp. l. Boers. Heat everything, mix, cool and add 1 tsp. l. honey Place this bait in places where insects accumulate.

I get rid of annoying ants from my summer cottage very easily. I find an anthill and, starting from it, pour a thin stream of concentrated sweet water or honey 2-3 meters long, and at the end I pour out 1 tablespoon of the same sweet bait.
The ants run along this path as if hypnotized. You can even scoop them up with a scoop, sprinkle them with salt, or simply trample them. After 2-3 days, the procedure must be repeated, but the sweet path should be laid in a different direction. I noticed that for some reason the ants did not run along the “old” path.

The beds can be sprinkled with a mixture of ash, highly crushed tree bark and lime. Ants cannot tolerate strong odors. Place the head of a smoked herring on the anthill of black ants, lay out tomato tops or parsley leaves. The magazine "Progressive Gardening and Horticulture" for 1906 gives the following advice: sprinkle the layer of soot and ash that is sprinkled on the soil to get rid of ants with a strong solution of table salt. A decoction of tomato tops has a detrimental effect on ants. The more concentrated the solution, the better. Ants do not tolerate this plant to such an extent that they are not even found in the beds where tomatoes grow. For example, I twist something like belts from green tops of tomatoes and tie them around the trunks of apple trees and plum trees at a height of about 1.5 m. During the summer, not a single ant penetrates the crown of the tree.
If the anthill is located at some distance from cultivated plants, you can pour boiling water over it.
On the paths along which the ants move (and they move strictly along their own routes), place cloves of garlic, twigs of wormwood, and tomato leaves cut into several pieces.
You can arrange a sweet trap for ants: dilute half a teaspoon of boric acid and 1 tbsp in half a liter of water. spoon of sugar. Stir thoroughly, pour into a small bowl and place a straw or blade of grass on the edge, along which the ants will get to the bait.
Pour a tablespoon of yeast with cold boiled water to the consistency of thick sour cream, stir, add a teaspoon of jam and stir again. Then you need to apply this mixture to a piece of cardboard and place it in places where ants accumulate. They eat the mixture and die after a while. It is better to prepare the bait in smaller quantities, but more often, without allowing it to dry out. Cover the top from the sun and rain with film, leaving a gap at the bottom for the ants.

To destroy ants, poisoned baits are laid out.
Bait recipe: 40% sugar, 10% honey, 5% borax, 45% water. Baits are poured into test tubes and laid out in an inclined position in those places where the ants climb (at the rate of one test tube per 3-4 sq. m).
Sunflower oil repels ants well. It is used to lubricate the edges of vessels containing jam, honey, sugar, and candies on all sides.

Ants in a house or apartment

Fighting ants is difficult, but possible. The main thing here is to take into account some features of ant life. So, the heart of an ant colony is considered to be the nest, where the females, or ant queens, are located, producing more and more new workers. Females do not leave the nests and cannot obtain food for themselves; they are fed by sterile worker ants.

Finding an ant nest in an apartment is very difficult. Usually it is securely hidden in some small cavity in the wall or floor. Even if you are lucky and find an ant hole, do not rush to chip off the tiles or remove the parquet: the hidden corridor leading to the nest can be quite long, and you will have to ruin more than one tile or parquet. However, since the worker ants feed the entire colony, you can try to “treat” the females and larvae with some kind of poisonous potion through them. This is possible if the concentration of the poison (boric acid is most effective) is low (does not exceed 2 percent). The ant will not die immediately, but will carry it to the heart of the colony.

Here are a few simple recipes:

1. Dilute about 1/4 teaspoon of boric acid, three teaspoons of sugar and one or two teaspoons of honey into a glass of water. The bait in small dishes should be placed not once or twice, but for a month, and in a place where ants can reach, but other domestic animals cannot. Make sure that ant poison does not become a dangerous toy for your children.

3. Ants are also repelled by the smell of sunflower oil, elderberry leaves, wild mint and wormwood.

4. Borax helps - a mixture of boric acid with sugar or honey. These creatures eat her and die.

5. Dichlorvos.

6. It is necessary to bring REAL FOREST ants from the street into the apartment where domestic ants live, and those, like decent revelers, should take the domestic ones into the forest. By the way, there is nothing funny, the method has already been TESTED - the disappearance of house ants is 100%.

7. Fill a jar with water, add more honey or sugar, they will crawl there themselves and voluntarily drown themselves.

8. Try smearing garlic on their driveways about a couple times a month.

9. Frontline spray helps radically - a fairly expensive spray against cockroaches, ants, fleas and ticks. Sold in veterinary pharmacies.

10. Radical remedy - "Regent". A small bag, dilute with water, apply with a small syringe with a needle into all holes and crevices.

11. Buy a special product in a tube at a hardware store (the names can be completely different) and smear this “toothpaste” near roads and ant passages. The point is that they begin to get sick and infect their colony, i.e. the effect increases significantly.

Recently, there have been more and more cases of bedbugs being introduced into the country house or apartment.

Some more tips for fighting ants in your apartment:

- Sunflower oil repels ants well. To prevent them from getting into food products, it is necessary to lubricate the edges of dishes and bags in which food is stored with sunflower oil.
- dissolve yeast in water, add jam or powdered sugar and put this mixture in the cupboard with food. The ants will attack the bait and die.
- Ants are repelled by the smell of lemon. Therefore, lemon can be used to lubricate the edges of dishes in which jam, honey or sugar are stored.
- put a piece raw meat in an accessible place and within a few days, remove the ants that have come from it. After some time, a hungry queen will crawl to the food; destroy her and the reproduction of ants will stop.
- the smell of parsley, garlic, bay leaf and mustard also repels red ants well.

To get rid of household ants in the kitchen, you must first, if possible, eliminate the holes and crevices from which these ants crawl out, then collect the ants all in one pile - for this you need to pour sugar in the place where they usually accumulate, then simply pickle them with a solution , which can be bought at any household chemical store.

To repel ants from food, the edges of the bags can be lubricated with sunflower oil.
- Lightly lubricate the lower parts of the table legs with mosquito repellent "Taiga" or "Komarex", after which the ants will not dare to rise to the surface of the table for 2-3 days.

Knowing the laws of life of an ant colony allows you not only to find a suitable way to fight, but also eliminates unnecessary fears. So, even if you return from visiting with a piece of grandma’s pie and bring several infertile worker ants, they still will not be able to establish a colony and begin to reproduce. Only females are in charge of dispersal. If this were not so, then the pharaoh ant would have taken much less time to spread throughout the world.