6 Must-Read Ant Control Tips for Your Garden

Ants maybe some of the oldest organisms in our world, but they're not welcome additions to your garden. You shouldn't have to worry about getting bitten by ants when you walk barefoot in your yard, and you certainly don't want ants to start coming inside your home from your garden! Fortunately, we have six tips you can try to help you control ant populations at your property without using harmful chemicals.

Deter Ants with Spices

Ground cinnamon and cayenne pepper have a strong smell, especially for ant's sensitive olfactory nerves. Cinnamon and cayenne pepper can actually help repel ants by disrupting their pheromone trails. If you sprinkle these spices liberally around your garden, you should start seeing fewer ants. One of the advantages of this technique is that cinnamon and cayenne paper are affordable, easy to acquire at your local grocery store, and safe for humans to be around.

Try Diatomaceous Earth

Using diatomaceous earth can help deter ants from sticking around your garden. This material is made from the diatoms, or fossils, of hard-shelled algae. Basically, when ants make contact with this powdery substance, it will dehydrate them and kill them by drying them out. As an added bonus, this also works well against slugs, too. Just make sure you use this substance when it is warm and dry outside for the best results.

Create a Borax and Sugar Trap

Ants are drawn to sweet substances, and by mixing borax with sugar, you can create an easy trap for ants. Once they start feeding on these toxic chemicals, they will carry them to their colony and kill hundreds of ants in the process. Although borax comes from natural compounds, be aware that they can be dangerous for humans and pets, and you never want to ingest borax.

Destroy the Colony with Boiling Water

If you locate the ants' colony, you can also destroy the nest by pouring boiling water over it. You may need to do this several times to kill the queen, and you may need to do a lot of digging to surround the whole colony, but if you manage to locate the nest, this can be an effective technique.

Trick Ants with Artificial Sweeteners

Artificial sweeteners like Equal and NutraSweet are a great way to trick ants, since ants will be drawn to the sweeteners but will also be driven away by the strong odor. Some people claim that artificial sweeteners can actually kill ants; the chemical odor may be enough to at least keep the ants from coming back. Pour artificial sugar anywhere you see an ant gathering to see if it works for you!

Get Rid of Aphids

A key way to control ants is actually to control aphids and other pests that suck sap. That's because aphids create a sticky, sweet residue that attracts even more insects to feast on it! Fortunately, you can control aphids fairly easily with neem oil or all-natural insect-killing soaps. By controlling your aphid population, you can help prevent ants from getting attracted to your garden in the first place.

If you don't have any luck with these ant control tips, it may be time to call a professional pest control team to take care of your ant problem with more drastic measures!

Check out this article for some additional Pest Control ideas!

Ant Killer Tactics – How to Get Rid of Ants in the Garden

Boric acid and sugar

This is possibly the most effective home remedy for getting rid of ants. Mix boric acid with sugar until it turns into a paste and then place small amounts of the paste around the entrances to the ant nest. Ants love sweet things and so they will be drawn to the paste, they will eat some and carry the rest back to the nest for the queen. Shortly after eating the sweet paste, the queen and other ants will begin to die due to the boric acid.

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