Ants. No aphids. I feel crazy.
witchygirrl6bwv
4 years ago
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witchygirrl6bwv
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoRelated Discussions
Do some ants eat aphids?
Comments (7)I would have thought you were joking around if of course I didn't know you were serious. I am constantly impressed with the knowledge of people on this site. Now if only I could get 4 or 5 of you to come on over and show me what I'm doing wrong and how to get rid or contain every pest, I'd have the best garden around! I'm not too concerned about the aphids at the moment...not on my corn anyway. It seems like the plants are big enough to handle a small number of aphids. I just have to go home today and put mineral oil on the silks. Never tried it before so wish me luck and correct me if my plan is not right. The silks appeared about 6 or 7 days ago. I am going to apply half a dropper (per GW poster's instructions) of mineral oil on each ear's silks. I don't plan on reapplying the ineral oil later b/c I am affraid of doing more harm than good by overdoing it. I can't remember ever having too many ears that were worm free so hopefully I can make that happen this time around....See MoreRe aphids - don't ants eat aphids?
Comments (20)I saw a documentary on ants by some famous ant scientist. Ants also secrete a pheremone where they walk and that is how the soldier ants know where to go- to bring food to the queen etc. If you watch ants they form trails- patterns that they all follow. If you put down something to distract them such as lavender oil, black pepper- something with a strong lasting smell they will get to that place and loose the pheremone scent and turn around. You will then see some very confused ants. I don't know about the whole aphid thing but I do know this is fact. So- if you really feel the need to get rid of the ants- experiment with this and see what happens. I tried this when I had an infestation of these tiny ants which happened to be in an external modem for the phone.It was so gross but I still had a hard time killing these little creatures carrying eggs trying to protect them when they were disturbed. So out came the lavender oil and away they went.Anyway I have millions of tiny ants in the garden this year and I wondered if they were somewhere in the chain of disaster I'm experiencing. See my post on bugs, bugs, bugs!...See Morefeels like ants in my head
Comments (13)My two year old and my sister's son (lives in an entirely different city) are both having problems with hives. And I'm not talking the mild kind that look like a heat rash. I'm talking full blown raised patchy itchy WELTS. Both only break out on exposed skin. My sons doctor says it's some kind of contact and through process of elimination we still can't figure out what it is. She put him on Claritin and it's giving complete control. My sister's doc gave her a diagnosis of sun allergy and gave them a cream to use. Funny to me and her that he still breaks out when he's INSIDE...and the cream does not control break outs. I told her she needs to get a new pediatrician. We are both hoping that with the arrival of cooler weather this problem will disappear. Netta...See MoreThese ants are making me crazy
Comments (7)Thanks for the continued help! Yes, I saw that too! Fascinating to watch them 'climb the tower,' but takes more time. That's why the one plant was completely under water, the whole thing, foliage, flowers, whole thing. The ants were crawling around under water after 30 minutes. It got too dark to see in there after that, but the one plant that stayed in for 2 hours still had ants when I finally took it out. The ants seem to have no interest in anything inside, so I don't know if they're what you're calling house ants or not. I never saw this kind of ant in OH, or any of the smaller ones that take up residence in pots here, just much bigger black ones which were definitely interested in coming inside. AFAIK, plants don't have pests aside from the occasional aphid or white fly that any bunch of plants outside would have, which I dispose of/rinse or trim off. I look at every leaf at least 4-5x per week, almost every day. They're definitely not picking pots housing plants with pests as a basis for that decision. The pots that seem to have ants in them more often than not show signs of stress and slow growth from issues around the roots, not pests at the foliage. The primary issue is nests in pots. If I could isolate why they like some and are not interested in others, that would be awesome! I'd like to put a moat around the whole porch, sigh! Yes, there's a lot of pots, most of them hanging. The ants find those too. They can be temporarily thwarted by coating the hanging arms with veg oil, or backwards tape, but either method is short-lived, and messy or ugly. (Not that this conglomeration of cheap plastic pots is terribly attractive, but I'm working toward having the outside of all pots covered with enough dangling foliage to 'fix' that.) This is shady end of front porch. There are more pots on the back porch, around my potting area, hanging from several trees, and our dog's house....See Morewitchygirrl6bwv
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoVaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agowitchygirrl6bwv thanked Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValleywitchygirrl6bwv
4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
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