Ants

[mrsflibble]

I've tried the blcoking the holes, I've tried the piles of sugar near the property but not actualy in it, is there an eco friendly way I can kill the buggers?!

[Thurston Garden]

Fire! It's eco-friendly but not in the least ant friendly....

[Clara]

Pyrethrum - check out the organic garden catalogue. Useful to have around should you get any beasties on your veggies too.

[lsm1066]

Mix the sugar 50/50 with household borax. The ants go for the sugar so they take it back to the nest, and the borax kills them.

[MKG]

Have a 24-hour Stomp-an-Ant party. It won't work, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Pyrethrum - check out the organic garden catalogue. Useful to have around should you get any beasties on your veggies too.

I confess that I am somewhat ambivalent about pyrethrum. OK, it is a natural product, but then so is strychnine. Thing is, in nature pyrethrum occurs in concentrations that make it an effective repelant, but rarely at levels where it can kill. Concentrated up it acts as a powerful and indiscriminate insecticide, which to me, does rather test the boundries of "organic."

Still, at least it is not persistent, which is a huge improvement over synthetics.

For ant though I would use the borox/sugar route. Covered over, the chance of interfering with other ecosystems is minimal.

[Millymollymandy]

I use ant killer and I don't care what's in it! Last weekend I had piles of the littler buggers running around my living room and loads under the rug. Ugh! We had to squish and pick up tons of them.

Outside I wouldn't put any poison; the ants are free to do their thing, as long as the red ones don't bite me. Then they HAVE TO DIE. It's quite simple.

[Moonwaves]

I put down lots of salt at every entrance to my house, much the same way I used to put down ant killer powder - they can stay outside and do what they want but can't stand them in the house. They don't seem to like crossing over the salt although it was only last year I tried that and there weren't too many ants around anyway. Will try the borax and sugar thing as well this year perhaps.

[AXJ]

Hi all

the on going saga of my window box.

I have (had) a number of pimento seedlings, some of which have been potted, other still in the seed trays. The stems of the seed tray plants are about 1.2 mm thick. I opened my curtains today to discover that a couple pf pimento seedlings had been quite literally snipped off, about half a cm from the surface of the soil, just like some one had done it with a pair of scissors. This is impossible. So it must be a pest, I do have ants knocking about, little black ones, standard ants as I think of them. Is it possible that they could or would do this? The other alternative is birds. Plenty of sparrow sized birds fluttering about.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

[MKG]

Ants can certainly snip plants like that. The question is - why would they do it? Did they leave the top part where it was, or have they tried to drag it away?

[AXJ]

Thanks for the reply.

the little vandals whom so ever they were, moved them a short distance, I guess I caught them in the act. Blimey this gardening lark, I have just seen a millipede on my back terrace as well. Those are not very nice things to have about I am told.

Okay, looks like a most non-policitically correct chemical warfare blitz is in order. Whaa, shudder, I hate bugs, they can really take the fun out of things LoL

[AXJ]

It is the birds, I caught one in the act, is it nest making season by any chance? BTW they seem to be wise to old CDs hanging up to scare them away, dang.

Next purchase a brightly coloured children's windmill and also a cardboard cut out of a robin red breast, that should keep 'em on their toes.

[Millymollymandy]

Yes it is nest making season - spring! love is in the air..... and birds can be very persistant if they fancy making their nest right there where you don't want them to!

If they are trying to nest in your window box the best thing you can do is stick little sticks in the soil, around your plants, so there is no flat surface for them to nest onto.

Hmmm that might not work if your birds are tiny ones though. What kind of birds are they? My suggestion should work for pigeons or blackbirds, but not necessary smaller ones!

[AXJ]

Funny you should suggest using small sticks, that is exactly the solution one of junior members of the AXJ family came up with when we initially sowed all the seeds in March.

Using traditional 'tooth picks' or more properly 'cocktail sticks' he set up a massive array of 'spears' based on the Roman army formation in battle. He gave it a name which escapes me, but it did the job to keep the blighters off the seeds.

I think that the birds (which are about sparrow sized) were trying to steal the pimento seedlings for their nest else where, pimento seedlings are very soft and feathery.

There was once an abandonded birds nest at the far end of the window box, but the dead thicket that was home has long gone. It was only when I had half cleared it that I realised it might be a regular nest, I would have left it be had I realised.

If the birds would just eat the ants, they would be most welcome!

[Millymollymandy]

Green Woodpeckers are great for eating ants, but they might not be so welcome on a window box!

Can you rig up some netting using some bigger sticks as a frame? That'd keep the small birds out.