You likely are seeing more because of the drought, but they are always there. Your garden is an ecosystem and ants merely are a part of the ecosystem. I just ignore them. They have a job to do and I assume they are doing it. I try to intervene in the natural ecosystem in my garden as little as possible. In a well-balanced ecosystem, the beneficial insects help control the pest insects a lot, so I leave them all alone as much as possible and let nature work the way it is supposed to.

The only time I treat for ants is if I have fire ant mounds in the veggie garden, and I use an organic fire ant product for that. I will use borax-based ant traps if they come into the house, but they haven't come into our house yet this year. They are more prone to that that in a wet year than a dry year. Before organic fire ant killers became available on the commercial market, I tried to control fire ants in the dog yard and back yard/side yard by using a non-organic ant killer, but was never comfortable using it and would use it only once every 3 or 4 years. I haven't used a chemical fire ant killer since the organic ones became available.

During drought all the pests flock to the area with the best ecosystem, meaning moisture and food. Still, they are there every year even if you don't notice them as much. It is just that there's more of them concentrated in certain areas during drought.

When I want to deter ants from traveling in certain spots--like right beside the faucets or hydrants where I hook up the water hose, I spray a mixture of liquid peppermint soap/water on the ground. It repels them and causes them to move their pathway away from the sprayed area. I don't use it in the garden unless I can do so without getting any of the soap spray on the foliage. In this heat, soap spray can kill foliage quite easily. In the garden where I can't spray because of potential foliar damage, I sprinkle cinnamon (which I buy in huge containers at Sam's or CostCo) along the ants' pathway and they move elsewhere.

I am surprised your tomatoes are cracking. Cracking usually occurs because of uneven moisture, and I tend to see it only after a big rainstorm or if I turn on the hose to water and forget to turn it off, thereby overwatering them and causing rapid growth in which the flesh grows faster than the skin and the skin cracks. If you'll pick your tomatoes at first blush and ripen them inside on the kitchen counter, their flavor is not impacted and you'll likely see little to no cracking. Any tomato left after first blush is likely to have issues with cracking, sunscald and pests.

I think virtually everything that's "wrong" this year is because of the drought, but I don't necessarily put ants in that category. We have tons and tons of ants here every year, wet or dry. I don't know if imported fire ants have made it as far north as your place yet, but we have billions of them here. We also have the less aggressive native fire ants, sugar ants and tons of Harvester ants. I love the Harvester ants because they are a food source for one of my favorite little wild things---horned toads. We also have carpenter ants and oodles of other kinds. There's no way you won't have ants if your property is a healthy ecosystem because they are a necessary part of the ecosystem.

Hi Dawn,

Thanks for the info on the different natural deterrents for ants. I had not heard of them. They ones in the garden are not a problem. I was just curious about it. I would not consider spraying to get rid of them.
We have had some fire ant activity in the really dry areas where the soil is exposed, but I haven't noticed them anyplace else. I wish we had the ones that the horned toads like. I haven't seen a horned toad since I was a kid, and I love them.

I'll take your advice on the tomatoes. I'd been leaving them to ripen on the vine. And yes, I'm sure that a couple of times they've gotten more water than I intended. Combined with the intense heat that dries everything out so fast, I'm not surprised that they have problems. The fact that they are trying to produce at all now, with all the stress, is pretty amazing. And from the look of the forecast, it's only going to get worse.

Pat

All my ants are eating the pollin out of my male blooms!

I have never seen any more ants than I have seen this year. They are using my irrigation tubes as a super highway, and if they can get through a 1/16 dia. hole they may be going inside the tubes when the water is turned off to get a drink.

Larry

Blackthumb6001,

What kind of blooms are they crawling in and out of? Often, by going from bloom to bloom thy actually help pollination by carrying pollen from one flower to another.

If you are concerned they are eating the pollen, you probably could distract them by sprinkling a little dry molasses or even plain table sugar on the ground near the plants---it doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.

Larry,

Ants always seem to thrive in dry weather. Having said that, I'm not noticing more than usual at our house, but maybe that's because I am staying inside as much as possible. I did notice a lot of ants and grasshoppers both lined up at the fire station door this morning, just waiting to go inside when we opened the door. I think those particular ones were hoping to come inside the building to get out of the heat.

Dawn

I see ants under my squash leaves pretty often.

They are just in male blooms of squash and cucumber. Only time I see them in a female is when I hand pollinate - they come in and eat up the pollin. Haven't had a fruit set yet..

I've decided that we have ants living under our foundation and they're using our broken sewage and air ducts to get into the house. No amount of Raid will make them leave. I just try to keep them out of the food prep areas as much s possible. It is very gross. Maybe my house is a good ecosystem!