Red ants in Garden ok?

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jlt77 Montpelier, ID Apr 30, 2009

I cleaned out my garden beds this week and have found two red ant hills. One in a raised bed for my vegetable garden and one in a flower bed/ strawberry patch. Will the ants eat what I plant. Should I try to get rid of them? If so, how?

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Apr 30, 2009

Most types of ants don't usually do a ton of damage to plants (I don't have any experience with the red ones though) But ants will farm things like aphids and scale which you definitely don't want happening in your veggie bed. And they're also quite annoying if they're in the middle of something like a veggie bed that you'll probably be in on a regular basis, so if it were my garden I'd probably consider trying to get rid of them. Assuming you don't have plants in there yet, you can pour boiling water over the mounds and that will probably take care of them. Or you could try baits with boric acid as the active ingredient--that's relatively nontoxic and shouldn't cause problems for your veggies down the road.

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docgipe NORTH CENTRAL, PA(Zone 5a) Apr 30, 2009

Don't know your so called red ants but if they like sugar mix some with a little dry borox as a mix they may like. If they munch on the sweetened borox its as good as any other ant magic.

I never had ants that caused any problems in my gardens that I recognized. I do not have any of the difficult ants to deal with here.

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kittriana Magnolia, TX(Zone 9a) May 02, 2009

down south, the ants, even the fire ants, not only farm aphids, but they strip the fruits, n harvest your garden as well as anyother bugs that thot they'd partake of your harvest...

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