Ants!

We re going through Ant Season. Ben the Gardener had mentioned ant hills in the gravel. They seem to be everywhere ... they even have the audacity to climb up my Hibiscus onto the flowers!
They are crawling outside the kitchen door coming in. T'other Half bought these disc things they enter, take whatever is in there and take it back to the nests and kill them all. I use water spray with washing up liquid on my plants. Horror season!

 

i have the same here, they are in every plant, in the green houses and even in a bag of compost, which I tipped out in the hope the birds will come dow and eat them!

wish there was a way of getting rid of them without using pesticides?

 

Water with washing up liquid in a spray bottle. Kills the immediate ones sprayed but not the nests.

 

It must be something in the air as we have masses of them in the garden and in the pots !!

Some of the b*****s are the biting kind too.

 

Nippon liquid ant bait is cheap, effective and not an insecticide that will attract other insects. The active ingredient is spinosad. Do not allow to enter fish ponds etc.
https://www.1env.com/media/bss/productattachment/Nippon_Ant_Killer_Liquid.pdf
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/spinosadgen.html

 

I use the round bait containers on the principle that nothing else is affected by the active ingredient. Even had to put one in each citrus tree half-barrel to get rid of nests . Strangely, the cats love to roll around in a procession of ants, licking them and patting them. I wonder if they taste sugary?

 

Hi saw this site
22 Natural Ant Repellent Options to Solve Your Ant Problem
morningchores.com/natural-ant-repellent

 

I have red ants in the front lawn. I use Ant Stop ( a liquid) which you can just water onto the nests. I only treat nests I find on the lawn, anywhere else they can live their lives.

 

We get these round baits from Leroy Merlin. I have not seen our cats do that.

We leave them do their thing in the gravel and earth ... but we don't like them making their way into the house. We left them climbing up our little Avocado tree (no fruit).

 

If you can get some polenta or cornmeal, spread it around the ant hills, they will take it back to the nest and explode. Had them in the compost bins once and that's what i did.

 

That sounds like fun