red ants

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alison mace

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red ants
« on: April 15, 2009, 15:28 »
hi i am wondering if anyone can help me to have a much more succesful year than the last i have a very large plague of red ants in the whole of my garden i have at least 1 large nest for every meter square i think i got 1 carot last year as they ate all the root veg from underneath it was horrible i desparatly need to get rid of thease ants
and then there was the cattapillas i went away for the weekend and when i got back all i had was the veins of the cabbage sprouts broccoli it was horrible so any advise greatly recieved thanx

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mumofstig

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Re: red ants
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2009, 16:29 »
Don't know about ants, sorry.
But you have to net brassicas if you want to eat any, or else the catterpilars will eat them before you get a chance >:(

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Yorkie

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Re: red ants
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2009, 16:32 »
Hello Alison and welcome to the forums

Cabbages and similar plants are very susceptible to cabbage white butterflies (caterpillars eat the leaves) - for this you'll need to cover the plants from the moment they go outside.  I use environmesh but debris netting from scaffolders is cheaper.


Re. ants, a quick search using the facility on this site revealed quite a few threads, have a look at these for starters

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=243.msg2322#msg2322

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=44.0

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=3643.0

Feel free to pop over to the welcome section of the forums and say hi so everyone else says hi to you too!  :D
I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days all attack me at once...

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Trebor

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Re: red ants
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2009, 16:35 »
The easy (but I guess not organic) way – ant powder;

The organic (but not very nice way) – lots of boiling water on a regular basis, maybe digging around a bit first; or

The organic, but slow way – use syrup tins like you would slug beer traps.

(The council could also get rid of them but will probably use some industrial strength nasty that you wouldn’t want near your veg.)

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sunshineband

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Re: red ants
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2009, 16:35 »
hi i am wondering if anyone can help me to have a much more succesful year than the last i have a very large plague of red ants in the whole of my garden i have at least 1 large nest for every meter square i think i got 1 carot last year as they ate all the root veg from underneath it was horrible i desparatly need to get rid of thease ants
and then there was the cattapillas i went away for the weekend and when i got back all i had was the veins of the cabbage sprouts broccoli it was horrible so any advise greatly recieved thanx
Don't worry Alison ants don't eat veg, so they won't rob you of your crop BUT they do loosen the soil as well as crawling up your legs and so on. I'm afraid I resort to downright cruelty to get rid of their nests (but organic of course!) and pour a huge great kettleful of boiling water over each one. Might need two if it goes down deep to get to the queen ant in each nest. After that you should be OK, where ants are concerned at any rate. Mumofstig had some advice re caterpillars -- boiling water's not so good here as it cooks the cabbages before they are ready  :lol: :lol:
Good luck. Let us know how you get on
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mumofstig

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Re: red ants
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2009, 17:04 »
Quote
advice re caterpillars -- boiling water's not so good here as it cooks the cabbages before they are ready   

 :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Salmo

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Re: red ants
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2009, 17:23 »
The mesh of netting to keep out cabbage white butterflies has to be 7mm or less. Homebase sell some cheap green netting of that size. Any bigger and they get through. Also prop the netting up so that it is not touching the cabbages as the butterflies will lay their eggs through the net.

I am sure that my garden and house will collapse one day because of ants. Overall they do good apart from spreading and protecting blackfly from which they get honeydew. It is the physical damage that is the problem. If I leave my lawn too long the ants make small mounds which clog the mower and spoil the grass. Herbacious plants get ant hills built in them. I have lessened the lawn problem by applying either ant powder or Dethlac to each mini mound. Hot water or a fork slows down the nests.

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alison mace

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Re: red ants
« Reply #7 on: April 15, 2009, 22:15 »
as i said i had a massive problem last year when i pulled my carrots up (and there was about 200) and all of them had no inside left just skin and about 30 red ants in each same with strawberries raddishes sweed and everything else that grew underground i really am stuck it being my first year i was really proud about how they all looked as the greenery above ground was not touched and looked wonderful i have to admit i had to cry at one stage i was so dissapointed. will ant powder be absorbed into the plant when it drinks the water i give it? i dont want to be poisoned!!

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Salmo

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Re: red ants
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2009, 23:58 »
« Last Edit: April 16, 2009, 00:02 by Salmo »

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sunshineband

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Re: red ants
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2009, 09:17 »
as i said i had a massive problem last year when i pulled my carrots up (and there was about 200) and all of them had no inside left just skin and about 30 red ants in each same with strawberries raddishes sweed and everything else that grew underground i really am stuck it being my first year i was really proud about how they all looked as the greenery above ground was not touched and looked wonderful i have to admit i had to cry at one stage i was so dissapointed. will ant powder be absorbed into the plant when it drinks the water i give it? i dont want to be poisoned!!

It certainly wasn't the ants that ate your carrots, I promise you, although they were obviously around at the time  :lol: It sounds like a bad infestation of carrot fly. These flies lie their eggs at the base of the tuft of carrot leaves and their grubs eat tunnels into the carrot roots, leaving brown marks and empty bits.

This is easy to deal with and all you need to do is protect the seedlings from now onwards with fine netting -- I used old net curtians once over  aframe made of wire coathangers opened out. Make sure you fasten it down well so they can't get in at the bottom, by heaping earth over the edges.
There are more fancy ways of dealing with the little blighters too. Some pepole put up a barrier about 2 ft high all around the carrot area as carrot flies only fly low. It is the small of the leaves that atttracts them, so very careful thinning and not leaving thinnings lying around will also help.

 Hope that is helpful. Good luck



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