Ridding my Vegetable Garden of Fire Ants

Battle of the Ants!

 

 

I have been at war.  The enemy…Fire Ants.  When I first discovered fire ants invading my garden, I realized I needed to take action immediately. !    If fire ants invade my lawn I know what works, but that solution would not work in my vegetable garden.  I needed to find something safe and nontoxic.   On one of my favorite gardening forums, Garden Web, I learned several interesting suggestions for ridding your vegetable garden of ants.    I cannot speak to the validity of any of these methods except the two I tried.  

Ways to Rid Your Vegetable Garden of Ants-

Orange Oil

Instant Grits

Dry or Gardening Molasses

Coffee Grounds

Cornmeal

Sugar

Diatomaceous Earth

Pots of boiling water

Ant Poison with the active ingredient Spinosad

Being a true Texan and a former 4-Her I knew the Texas A&M extension service must have some valuable information for battling the pesky little critters.  I have included the link to their fact sheet.  It was interesting to see which of the above suggestions from the garden forum were actually on their fact sheet.  I was surprised to actually find boiling water on the A&M Fact Sheet.     

https://insects.tamu.edu/fireant/materials/factsheets_pubs/pdf/fapfs004.2002rev.pdf

I treated the infested area twice with cornmeal and although it seemed to slow the ants for a day or so, they never vacated my garden.    I treated the ants this past weekend with poison containing the active ingredient Spinosad.  On Monday there were still a few ants crawling around, but not many.   If I see any more ants I may try the boiling water method next.  

 



Cornmeal treatment for fire ants slowed them down,
but did not eradicate the pesky fella's.