Post by Digger on Jun 23, 2015 12:17:58 GMT
I've got red ants in my mini poly tunnel 
To start with I wasn't too bothered - they eat a lot of bugs themselves so I thought they could actually be quite beneficial.
But then they decided to move in in droves, and seemed to prefer the watered ground around the base of my chilli peppers and tomatoes...
Two of my six chilli peppers died because the ants excavated away so much soil from their roots that they basically just wilted and shrivelled up.
Then the same thing happened to one of my tomatoes.
At this point I decided enough was enough. I dug deeply all round the area where they seemed most prevalent and unearthed thousands of ants and hundreds of eggs. I really disturbed them as much as I could, followed their underground burrows as far as they went and trashed the bed for them.
The next day I returned to check on my handiwork and the little beggars had made a remarkable recovery, with tell-tale little mounds of earth from their excavations littering the floor of the poly tunnel.
So I dug around again and this time I collected as many of the eggs as I found and dropped them off miles away at the other end of my allotment thinking that they might give up with no eggs left to save. Needless to say I was wrong, the little mounds were back the next day.
So I totally saturated the whole bed with water round where I had twice dug them out, and dug the swampy mess to completely flood and collapse their tunnels.
No joy, back the next day and to make things worse all I had succeeded in doing was encourage them further into my tomatoes where there had previously been very few of the ants.
At this point I realised I needed a new approach so after a bit of googling I came across Ant Nematodes. They weren't as expensive as I had expected (about £8 incl postage for enough to treat 16m2 or 8 nests) so I ordered some and they arrived a couple of days later.
I watered the prescribed amount into the bed on Sunday and am planning on checking how they are getting on later today.... If they work I'll be delighted! Money well spent, and much better than the nasty chemicals that they sell in the supermarkets to get rid of ants. I wouldn't want to eat anything that had grown in soil with those chemicals in!
To start with I wasn't too bothered - they eat a lot of bugs themselves so I thought they could actually be quite beneficial.
But then they decided to move in in droves, and seemed to prefer the watered ground around the base of my chilli peppers and tomatoes...
Two of my six chilli peppers died because the ants excavated away so much soil from their roots that they basically just wilted and shrivelled up.
Then the same thing happened to one of my tomatoes.
At this point I decided enough was enough. I dug deeply all round the area where they seemed most prevalent and unearthed thousands of ants and hundreds of eggs. I really disturbed them as much as I could, followed their underground burrows as far as they went and trashed the bed for them.
The next day I returned to check on my handiwork and the little beggars had made a remarkable recovery, with tell-tale little mounds of earth from their excavations littering the floor of the poly tunnel.
So I dug around again and this time I collected as many of the eggs as I found and dropped them off miles away at the other end of my allotment thinking that they might give up with no eggs left to save. Needless to say I was wrong, the little mounds were back the next day.
So I totally saturated the whole bed with water round where I had twice dug them out, and dug the swampy mess to completely flood and collapse their tunnels.
No joy, back the next day and to make things worse all I had succeeded in doing was encourage them further into my tomatoes where there had previously been very few of the ants.
At this point I realised I needed a new approach so after a bit of googling I came across Ant Nematodes. They weren't as expensive as I had expected (about £8 incl postage for enough to treat 16m2 or 8 nests) so I ordered some and they arrived a couple of days later.
I watered the prescribed amount into the bed on Sunday and am planning on checking how they are getting on later today.... If they work I'll be delighted! Money well spent, and much better than the nasty chemicals that they sell in the supermarkets to get rid of ants. I wouldn't want to eat anything that had grown in soil with those chemicals in!