Topic: ants seem to be attacking the base of my brocoli plants!

[soupdragon1973]

I have some raised beds and recently noticed that ants seem to be stripping part of the base of my brocoli plant and  therefore weakening it slightly.I have read that ants usually dont pose a problem.I have ended up pulling out the plants affected and then putting hot water on the hole where the ants were swarming from. I also used a solution of water,oil,washing up liquid cloves of garlic and chilli flakes which I mixed up in the blender and sprayed on the plants but to little avail.Maybe I didnt squirt enough on there.The ants also seem to be carrying the eggs of some kind of aphid or small black fly to the leaves of my parsnips too,little blighters!!!

[Obelixx]

Apart from the stings when they bite you for disturning them, ants farm aphids by carrying them to your juicy crops and defending them from predators so the ants can get all that sticky, nutritious honeydew they excrete.    In addition, they make underground nests which, if in the roots of your plants, mean their root sytem is in air rather than soil and they suffer drought and malnutrition. I nearly lost a large rhubarb crown this way.

You can deal with them in one of two safe ways:-

Kill them by placing little shoe polish size tins of ant poison across their path so they take it home to the nest.

Encourage them to move elsewhere by pouring a solution of 10litres of water mixed with a whole bottle of essential oil of cloves (pharmacies and health stores). They don't like the smell and move away.

You can also expose their nests so that birds come and eat the ant eggs but be careful to do this at arm's length or you'll be badly bitten.

[PurpleHeather]

I agree with what has been said by Obbelix. Ants do not seem to be an endangered species however so I feel it is acceptable to poison them when they nest in a place where it is a nusiance.

Nippon is the trade name of a gel sold in a tube. It is delicious to ants and the gel is taken back to the nest as food so that the whole colony is poisoned. You should not destroy the nest when using the product as the eggs will be carried off elsewhere and another colony will start.

Just leave regular supplies of the gel out for a week or so. Any shiny non pourous surface will do. An off cut of a ceramic tile is good. Once the gel is taken as food keep replacing it until no more is taken.

I think you will almost certainly loose this brocoli plant.

[grannyjanny]

There's a product called ant bait, 2 in a pack for about £3 which you just push the side in & the ants take the poison from there. Completely under cover. We haven't had them return since we used it. We were plagued with them for years after having a nest disturbed when we had a new boiler fitted 25 years ago.

[Robert_Brenchley]

A little borax mixed with jam and placed near the nest will do the trick.