Ants in my veg beds

[shonam]

Just been out to check on the plants today and OH spotted a couple of black ants on the patio. When I looked over the beds there were loads of them. I don't know how long they've been there for as I might just have noticed them today as OH had pointed out the ones on the slabs.

Should I be worried - will they do any harm to our plants? If so what should I be doing to get rid of them?

Thanks
Shona :)

[shonam]

[pigeonseed]

They do farm aphids, which is annoying. But aphids seem to do well anyway, with or without ants. Personally ants annoy me a bit but not enough to do anything about them. I always find there are tons of them of varying colours.

(Except wear shoes not sandals if you have red ants!  ;D)

[Columbus]

Hi Shonam, Hi all  :)

You will probably find your soil is dry and dusty the way ants like it, but that isn`t so good for plants. You might want to water more and add some organic material to your soil when you can to improve water retention for next year.

If they come in the house try using Nippon ant killer but otherwise farming aphids as pigeonseed wrote is the biggest problem, in which case as its near the house use gray water for watering or ...

You know someones going to write it so here goes ....  ;D
Look before you sit on your patio because you will get  ....  ;D
...... ants in your pants.  ;D

Col

[pigeonseed]

Good point about the soil, Col. I hadn't thought of it that way.

[chriscross1966]

Black ants need to die .... traps, boiling wate, whatever...... Red ants don't farm aphids in my expereince and do eat nearly every nasty known to mankind so I can live with them.....

If you get rid of the black ants then hoverfly, ladybird and lacewings wilol kill most of the aphids....spraying soap/cooking oil emulsion  solution at dusk (after the bees and ladybirds have gone to bed) will get the bad bits....


chrisc

[.]

" Black ants need to die "

Fire Ants more so,

Oh and Mole crickets are only rare until....

[earlypea]

They also mess with the roots of seedlings and hinder their development so it's not great having them in a seedbed and they make strange scarring on potato skins.

Hate them myself.  Bigger problem than slugs for me.

[Columbus]

Hi all,   :) Duh, I forgot earlier .. another biggest problem ..

The problem with ants and seedlings is they dig vertically downwards by the stem of the seedling in already dry and dusty soil which leaves the tiny root exposed and it drys out and kills the seedling.

Col

[earlypea]

and they mess with my parsnips in a similar way to potatoes too  :(  (me no like ants)

Since I gave up no-dig and dig nice stuff in, far less of a problem in those beds, but still have some no-dig beds because I absolutely don't want to excite the marestail in beds where it's virtually eliminated.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Ants don't like being dug, and tend to move out as a result. They don't go far though!

[pigeonseed]

I had a fight with two ants nests this morning. I had to ask them to move on, so I could make a new bed and sow the winter radish seed which 1066 kindly gave me.

The ants weren't happy.