When we are talking about the ant, it’s never about one or two of them, but it’s a colony. As you may have known, a colony of ants contains more than thousands of them.
Of course, the ant is a clever animal with extraordinary behavior that many scientists left on amazement. A colony of ant is more like a kingdom, with the queen as the leader which commands the workers, soldiers, and drones to keep all of the members of the colony alive.
When they start to invade your garden, it can be a huge problem. Your garden may contain abundant food sources so they can’t help but widen their hunting ground. At some points, ants can be beneficial since they can help to fertilize the soil.
The problems occur when they start destroying your plantations by building the nest in their root system. They also protect other pests like aphid which wildly devour your beloved plants. Moreover, ants can be such a very annoying nuisance that makes it so unpleasant to spend time in your garden.
Facing the problems of ants infestation should be done as soon as possible. Because once the workers of the colony find rich food sources in your garden, a whole colony will invade the space in no time.
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Don’t worry, you can use some home remedies to solve the problem. Follow the easy tutorial on how to get rid of ants in garden without killing plants below.
How to Get Rid of Ants in Garden Without Killing Plants
The use of chemical ants repellents can be toxic to your plants. You may end up killing both the ants and the plants. Therefore using DIY repellents that are made of natural ingredients can be a good alternative to keep in mind.
Spray the Plants
First, you can start by spraying the plants with natural ants repellent that you can make by yourself. It will not kill your beloved plants, but ants surely hate it.
Prepare these supplies:
- 1-gallon water
- ¾ cup orange or lemon essential oil
- 1 tbsp molasses
- 1 tbsp dish soap
- 1-gallon bucket
- Garden sprayer
Follow these steps:
- Mix all the ingredients in the bucket, you can use warm water to mix everything easier.
- Add the mixture to the garden sprayer.
- Spray the plants which the ants hunt.
As an alternative, you can also use a mixture of orange or lemon peels and water. You can use this method when you don’t have essential oils.
- Collect the peels of 5 to 6 oranges or lemons
- Boil them until soft for around 15 minutes.
- Put the softened peels along with the water in the food processor.
- Make the slurry out of those materials.
- Pour the mixture around your plants or beds.
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Use Toxic Bait
The workers of the ants colony will feed the queen once they got some food from your garden. You can benefit this behavior by feeding the ants the toxic bait. Once all the whole colony eats the baits, they will begin to die.
Prepare these supplies:
- ½ tsp borax
- ½ tsp sugar
- ½ tsp honey
Follow these steps:
- Mix all of the ingredients until you get a paste consistency.
- Place the past around the ant nests.
Attack Their Nest
If it’s possible for you to find the nest of the ants’ colony, you can directly kill them entirely by attacking their nest. It’s considered as the most effective step to eradicate them.
Prepare these supplies:
- Boiling water or white vinegar
Follow these steps:
- Once you have found their nest, pour the boiling water or white vinegar into it.
- You may need to attack more than one nest.
- Do the step repeatedly until you are sure that the entire colony has died.
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Those natural ants repellent may not work as fast as those chemicals that you can find in gardener shops. But you can be really sure that your plants will be as safe as possible while you solve the invasion of the ants. Moreover, you also can save a lot of your budget.
You can add the tutorial on how to get rid of ants in garden without killing plants above to your DIY project list right away!
