Stop, bring back my grass seed!

I live in Turkey and Spring has arrived late this year. So last Sunday I sowed a large area of ground, about 100 sq metres with top quality grass seed. Followed every instruction, read dozens of how to do it websites, raked the ground, measured out 50 gm of grass seed for every sq metre, carefully scattered the seed, raked again, watered and then went in for a large drink as a reward for all my hard work.

The next morning I rushed down to see if anything had happened, yes I know I was being over optimistic - and was horrified to see that the entire area was covered in a moving carpet of very large, well fed ants. Each ant was carrying one of my grass seeds and running as fast as its little ant legs could carry it to I know not where.

When those ants had gone,reinforcements arrived, thousands and thousands of them, all running away with my grass seed. This has carried on all week.

Is there anything I can do? I garden organically so can't poison them and anyway, there seems to be about three million of them but I cannot sow again if all I am doing is feeding the local wildlife.

Just to make things even more difficult, turf is not sold here so it's seed or nothing.

Any ideas about combatting this problem most gratefully received.

Thanks everyone

 

Cor, that is a hard one.

Anyway you can pre germinate the seed, like doing seed sprouts, and then spread those about?

Only other thing I can think of is distracting them with a goat carcass.

 

Wow, that's amazing! Have you got any photos? Would love to see that.

As for what to do, The only things I can suggest is to either try to control the ants or to distract them in some way.
Over here in the UK there are ant Nemetode controls on the market, but I doubt they would be effective against such an onslaught.

You could maybe try to actually feed the ants to distract them from the real seed ... maybe leave a pile of seed nearer to their nest, or something else suggary.

You could also try to lay a barrier around your lawn that they don't like to cross, like flour, chilli powder, coffee or something similar.

Good luck though, that's a tough one!

 

Turkish ants are really tough, they'd tunnel through fresh lime mortar if it was in their way. That would burn most creatures. Saw them hollowing out a Tortoise too

 

The only thing I can suggest is similar to Kris's idea. Put a little trail of seed leading to a pile, when the ants arrive pour boiled water on them.

 

Pre germinating would be worth trying, ants might not like damp seedlings, try following method.
Put good quality damp topsoil in a bag and add grass seed. 3 to 4 days grass seed should germinate. Then sow mix into prepared seed bed. You must keep damp until seeds are established.
Could try small area first to see if it works.
Good Luck.

 

I've seen grass seed sown in Turkey on a Monday & be a 2 inch high lawn by wednesday. Couldn't believe it

 

Thank you for ideas. Will try pre- germinating the seed. Sounds as though that could be the answer.

Unfortunately, I would need several thousand litres of boiling water to try and eradicate them that way. As you can imagine, I haven't counted them but I would estimate there are 150,000 ants lunching at my expense at any one time.

I liked the distraction ideas, so set up a number of drop in, eat a much as you like buffets around the seeded area. I had orange and grapefruit skins at one, banana peel at another, bread and jam at a third and cat poo, always popular with our ants, at the fourth.

Was sure this would work. It did. The number of ants quadrupled in just over two hours . They fed from the buffet, carried off all the food, then came back for the grass seed.

Currently experiencing a minor hurricane which will see off all the ants as the few remaining grass seeds have been carried out to sea.

Weather forecast for tomorrow is good so will start sowing again then, and as soon as the ants arrive, will post some pictures.

Zigs is quite right. Turkish ants can eat an entire building in an afternoon.

Thanks again everybody

 

Maybe a wholesale bag of boiled sweets near their nest(s). I AM thinking of little british ants however, I imagine turkish ants will probably just carry these away?!

 

I have amazing news. Some grass seed has sprouted. I would say that of the 250,000 seeds I sowed, at least 100 have survived.

The even better news is that the ants in the garden, having eaten 50 times their own body weight a day for five days , are so large and fat now that all the birds arriving for the summer can spot them from a distance of a kilometre and are having ant sandwiches, ant stew, probably even ant cocktails.

Now I'm worried about what will happen to all those poor birds who've eaten fifty times their own body weight in ants and are now too fat to fly.

Nobody told me gardening would be this stressful.

 

Dont' worry about the birds Lantana, they'll fly off the extra weight.

Perhaps now that the ants are reeling around with huge stomachs you can re-sow more grass seed and hope it will sprout before they are hungry again.