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Vegetable Gardening

Do ants attack plants? Dying lettuce...

9 years ago

I've got some Tom Thumb head lettuce that is doing quite well (looseleaf stuff is bolting), but every once in a while I find a head that's wilted, and find the leaves all cut off at the base. Not eaten, just chopped right off and leaves fall in rosette. Just found another - lifted the leaves and lots of tiny (sugar?) ants under. Also had a volunteer Green Wave mustard growing in mulched aisle, it was pretty spicy last year so I didn't start any this year but was happy to leave the volunteer (and grab a leaf to munch every once in a while). It's lying there too, ants around it.

I guess it's possible DH was out in the garden last night (but he wasn't home long, had to get to Scouts), definitely wasn't this AM, he could have pulled the mustard as a "weed" but he's NOT cutting off the lettuce and leaving it in the bed.

Time for borax and sugar trap? Or do I have a vole or something eating the roots (but then leaves fall off the lettuce head?)?

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Comments (6)

CaraRose
9 years ago
Any sign of aphids? I see ants and I immediately start looking for aphids.
loribee2
9 years ago
Others will provide more information but as to your question about ants, no, they don't attack plants. If you have ants in your beds, they are usually coming for aphids.

Best way to get rid of aphids is to spray them off with water every few days. Most get stuck in the mud and die, but you have to keep spraying them off at least once a week to keep them at bay. Other people swear by dish soap solutions, which I've never tried. I use neem oil as a preventative measure, and it helps, though it's not aphid proof.
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2ajsmama
Original Author
9 years ago
Didn't see any aphids on the lettuce. Tom Thumb is growing so low to the ground, if there are aphids on the underside of the leaves, I'm not going to be able to spray them off. Not tall like Romaine, they're like those miniature heads you see packed 3 to a clamshell in the store.

The ants aren't eating the lettuce, but I wonder if they're damaging it as they build their nests/tunnels. I see quite a few in the spot where I put my Little Leaf cukes (not germinated yet) too, I've got cilantro volunteers down one end of that bed and they're not bothering it - yet. But the cilantro is very close to the mustard that's toast now.
shermthewerm
9 years ago
I have had ants that like to build their little colonies in my raised beds right at the plants' stems. I have lost many young turnips and small cabbage/broccoli plants. And I never saw any aphids. All of the other plants in the same bed thrived. If the ants are just crawling around, stealing the seeds I don't mind too much, but I have watched as they go underground right around the stems and within a few days the small plant withers and dies, no matter how much I water it.
digdirt2
9 years ago
No common ants don't attack plants but they will harvest/eat dying or rotting organic matter like dying leaves of lettuce laying on the ground. So if the lettuce is dying something else is causing it and the ants are just enjoying the buffet.

Wilted and cut off at the base sounds like cutworms.

Dave
2ajsmama
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks Dave - I worry about cutworms with peppers and tomatoes, didn't realize they chopped lettuce too. What's the remedy (can't really fit a collar over these heads now)?

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