Generally, it's harmful to plants only if the colony gets so huge it disrupts/kills a plant's root zone...or (more likely) they start "farming" aphids (literally, taking aphids to plants to feed on so they can collect the honeydew the aphids poop out).

Most of the time they're just enjoying some loose soil to dig around in and cause no harm, though.

Also, smoothing mounds just make the ants not visit that hole and create a new one. It disturbs the colony, but rarely causes it to leave.

Thanks. I have only been smoothing the mounds around small seedlings that look as if they might get smothered. We do have plenty of ants and I realize they will just make the mound somewhere else. As long as my vegetable are OK they can mound to their hearts' content.

It depends on the type of ants. I have a type now that enjoys farming aphids and mealybugs... on plant roots. I'm still working on a good organic method for dealing with these. Keep an eye on the plants, if they fail to thrive, consider pulling one up to check the roots. Hopefully your ants are more benign thatn mine!

I use a home-made mix of Borax + powdered sugar...1 part borax to 2 parts sugar with a little bit of water (a very little bit...enough to make a paste).

I put it on paperboard (that stuff junkmail flyers are printed on) near mounds. It kills off or makes many colonies move in a matter of days.

The boron it adds to the soil profile is pretty insignificant, it's mostly harmless to any animals that might eat it (aside from an upset stomach), and it's really cheap to make.

I put it out when the ants are active and remove them if rain is coming (not required, but if it's not hardened into a rock you can place them back out after rains).

Thanks, NC! I'm trying something similar, but with the borax/sugar in a liquid form. I'm cautiously optimistic, but the real pain is finding enough tiny receptacles to make many bait stations. I can't tell if I have thousands of minor colonies or merely twenty or so huge colonies with many exits. I hope and suspect the first, since weeds I pull up will have aphids sometimes and mealybugs another. The queen brings the starter aphid/mealybug when she makes her maiden voyage to start the colony, so different bugs means different queens. I hope. I'm also not sure if I will need to do something seperate to address the aphids on the roots once the ants move off/die...

Fascinating insects, if only they weren't undoing my hard work with theirs!

Don't waste your time with borax. Jeez, always a chemical bandaid solution to bypass a true solution at the expensive of our environment and your soil ecology (and therefore plant health). Oh not to mention you're throwing $$ away without getting to the root problem - an area hospitable to ant colonies due to dry soil or not enough organic mulch.

Just throw orangic mulch on top of the soil surrounding your plants. 1-3" of it. Grass clippings, leaves, straw, seaweed, coffee grounds, etc.

The idea is to foster an environment beneficial to your plants not by dousing it with chemicals but by boosting the multifaceted systems within it by working with it, not against it, to enhance biological, chemical, and physiological systems.

If Borax isn't "green" enough I'm surprised you own a computer. A lot of people would have it on their lists.

Also, a box of Borax + a box of powdered sugar will cost you around $4 and it should last you long enough to pass the boxes down to another generation.

Another 'it depends on the ant' answer. There is a species called "Allegheny Mound Builders" I had one of the first colonies my extension agent had seen in person and showed it to a group of MGs in training. They inject the soil around their castles with formic acid to purposely kill vegetation. They form a symbiotic relationship with hairstreak butterflies, however and you may want to Google that and read about it. Generally, if you can tolerate the ants, they are an excellent insect predator.

Mulch doesn't do diddly to disuade the ants I have, but thanks for your input! My garden is mulched, but what they seem to be after is plants around which they can farm their aphids and mealybugs. They seem to regard the hay and straw mulches as blessed shade. The soil is sandy loam, and ants thrive here because of the lightweight nature of the substrate.

This seems to be a boom year for the ants, with noticably many more than the past two summers, so this is the year I need to do something. Last year less than 10% of the plants had ant hills, this year 80-85%, which I consider to be well beyond the acceptable loss limit. Anyhow, of all the methods out there, the borax and sugar was the most gentle, environmentally friendly method I could find, with little impact on the plants, soil, or beneficial insects. Sadly, not all problems can be mulched away.

To the OP, sorry if this is hijacking your thread, but if you decide you need to do something about your ants, you are getting lots of input on what methods to try!

Many parts of the US didn't have "killing frosts" or long enough cold/freeze spells this year...especially all up the East Coast.

I'm a bit shocked fungal diseases haven't been totally out of control this year. The bugs I'm used to seeing seasonally "moved in" many weeks earlier this year in NC.

Yeah I wonder how much fossil fuel that borax took to make, or that sugar.

Cool, I have a computer, so I may as well dump oil on the beach, because hey, I have a computer.

Anyways, red herrings aside, there is no need to waste time or money with Borax. If you are mulching and have ant problems, you aren't mulching intensively enough, and your soil is too dry.

Aside from that, if you have ants, and you're mulching sufficiently, and damage (most likely make believe) to your plants is offset by the beneficial factors of mulch regarding water retention and increased biological activity in your soil.

If you have aphid problems that attract your ants, buying borax is useless, because the root cause is your APHID problems. Easily solved in the short term by spraying off with water, or trimming your affected plant to easily remove huge numbers of aphids, or squishing them with your hands, or having a beneficial environment that encourages predator insects (eh ehm - organic MULCH).

Buying borax is yet another lazy bandaid solution that ignores the many biological, chemical, horticultural, and physiological aspects at play involved in gardening. Two or more birds can be killed with one stone by mulching. Nothing is achieved by buying borax aside from yet another bandaid solution that ignores the root cause of an issue while ignoring many other issues that come into play here while gardening.

You might want to make sure you actually know what Borax is...or take your meds.

It's a naturally occurring, mined mineral that's minimally processed down to powder form and put in a box.

If you got issues with Borax there's about 10,000 other things out there that's REALLY gonna upset you.

Well, we do have a good layer of organic mulch in the garden, so the ants only make their mounds right where we've pulled the mulch aside for the seedlings. But the plants all look OK, so I'm just going to live and let live.

By the way, we don't have overly dry or sandy garden soil. In fact, our native soil is quite heavy and clay-ey, so I imagine the amended garden soil seems nice and light to our ants, who generally have to put up with much worse!

Thanks everyone for your advice, and for the interesting different perspectives. Ants are always good for a conversation-starter; I use them all the time at parties.

Also try READING what is written... I cannot possibly hose aphids off the roots of my plants. Talk about ignoring the root of a problem!

So, careful because your ignorance is not winning you any points for believability... Maybe you should take your trolling attempts to get a rise out of people elsewhere.

Sunnibel,

Silly, you just pull the plants, wash the roots off and then replant them and thoroughly mulch with some good organic mulch... They'll be just fine lol.

:)

Interesting reading lol! I also have an ant problem, I did nothing about it then much to my dismay came out one morning to half of my zucchini seedlings munched to the nub by something, aphids? Earwigs? I would mulch but if it is earwigs mulch attracts them. What to do?

Aphids feeding on the roots of your plants? If they are, which they generally don't, it's because your roots are exposed (this shouldn't happen if you're mulching properly, and roots of your plants should never be exposed even without mulch)

"You might want to make sure you actually know what Borax is...or take your meds.It's a naturally occurring, mined mineral that's minimally processed down to powder form and put in a box.If you got issues with Borax there's about 10,000 other things out there that's REALLY gonna upset you."

-Yeah - I'll say it again - how much fossil fuel does it take to make Borax (mine it out of the earth, send it to a factory, package it, ship it to be sold)

It's a complete waste of everything.

But I guess since other things are bad in the world, it's ok to ignore that - right? Hey go pour oil on your garden because, well, there's car exhaust in the air, and we'll all get cancer one way or the other - right? Nice red herrings!

Thanks, Howel, I'll do that! 30 3 ft tall tomatoes, 80 corn plants, goodness knows how many beans (how do I get them wrapped around the cattle panel again, I wonder)... ;)

This is the last I will post to this discussion. Do a web search for "root aphids" find information, educate yourself. If you want to stretch yourself, then do a search for information about "cornfield ants" and you can read the same information I already told you, just from an agricultural extention or IPM website.

As for the rant, well, if you really feel that way, I suggest looking into eastern religions and philosophies. They deal more directly with the ambiguity (some say dualism) of life and may help ease your angst about being alive in this world. Because unless you sit absolutely still and starve yourself to death in the dark, every single thing you do has some negative impact.

Aili, I don't know what munched your zucchini, but aphids are off the hook for that since they suck plant juice rather than eat foliage. Maybe start a new thread yourself? Post a pictue of the damage? Cheers!

Irony - Needing Borax hydrolyzed into Boric Acid in order to make the glass for a computer screen...or glass for the glass houses one would throw rocks from the inside of.

Lets bathe in borax, because hey, our computer screens are made with it!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lol...

Poor jayco had no idea what he/she was starting with this thread llmao.

I think I going to go make some borax/baking soda dish detergent and do a load of dishes since I'm out of dish soap and don't feel like wasting gas on a trip to the store to get more ;)

Irony - Someone who praised someone else in another thread for using a soap/water method for getting rid of a problem having a issue using something that's more minimally processed than dish soap (with less inputs coming from ingredients made from far away palm trees and industrial byproducts).

Actually, that's not irony...

Anyway...

In reality-land, Borax used like this is some pretty safe stuff for your soil unless you're dangerously close to having high boron levels in your soil (most people aren't). The amounts used for ant control are extremely minimal and localized.

Didn't praise, and called for water or other methods

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/organic/msg062352213399.html

Just saying...

Yeah, bees aren't ants.

Yep, like I said, ants are always a good conversation starter.

They make mounds, they're industrious, their entire biomass weighs more than our entire biomass. Plus they rhyme with "pants." How much better can it get?

Lol, the movie was pretty good too, at least in my opinion... Uh oh, I probably just opened the door to a whole new debate lol...