Ants in my radishes!

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Lettuceman Dayton, WA May 04, 2005

Small black ants are chewing chunks out of my radishes, making them quite unsightly. I watered the radishes down well, then spread a mixture of 1/4 cup borax and 1 cup powdered sugar around. Supposedly, the borax will kill the entire colony when the mixture is fed to the queen. Does anyone know of any other way to keep ants out of the radishes?

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Night_Bloom Griffin, GA(Zone 8a) May 05, 2005

I've not heard of ants chewing on radishes before. Ants generally eat a liquid diet themselves - only the larvae can eat solid food and they are back at the nest. If they weren't dark colored, I might guess that these were termites (I had termites munching on my turnips last year), because termites will munch on things more readily.

So hmm, this is a puzzler to me. The ants might be thirsty, but a radish is an odd choice for them to try and get water from. If these are a problem, the best bet is to find the ant colony and treat it directly. A granular bait around the nest - probably sweet based - sounds like the best bet to me to use around your garden, but be careful because I think some baits have restrictions for use around edible veggies.

Good luck.

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Lettuceman Dayton, WA May 05, 2005

I appreciate your input, Night Bloom. Well, I always thought that ants didn't bother veggies too. But, these are definetly ants and a couple of years back they attacked my cauliflower seedlings and Kohl-Rabi plants. They sawed off at least two of the cauliflowers at their base. I used the borax/powdered sugar mix then, and thought I had eradicated them...guess not!

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