what my grandmama called sweet ants...i know its not really a garden question... but what can i do to get them out of my kitchen without destroying their nest???(if thats possible)and no chemicals as i do have kids and pets?
The best advice I can give you is keep that kitchen clean and don't leave food out on the counter. Empty your kitchen waste at least daily and make sure your kitchen tap doesn't drip. Clean and dry is the course of action to take. And remember to sweep up the crumbs on the floor regularly. I don't have a problem with them, but my neighbor with four kids fights them every year.
we didnt really have aprob with them till this year. it seems like they came outta no where. now their in my bathroom too. ahhh...
I know that mint keeps them away my mother had planted abunch of mint within her flower beds all around the house and we never had a problem with ants. also cinnamon supposedly helps as well as a bay leaf onthe window sill. try and see if any of them work for you. I have a similuar issue with black ants though my entire dishwasher area is just crawling with ants so i have to wash my dishes twice once inthe dishwasher and another by hand just to get all the ants off the dishes. ugh i even tried rinsing all the dishes before i put them in just doesnt seem to help so i just dont know where they are coming from.
As we all know, ants are very sensitive to odors. The trails ants follow are marked by scents. Just like they're attracted by sweets, other smells repel them. Keep in mind, at least around here, they sometimes are after water not food. Anyway, ants hate mint, especially peppermint or spearmint, also pennyroyal, southernwood, tansy, clove oil and camphor. You can also put hot peppers with a little water in a blender and make a paste, which you can spread in problem areas. Another thing I've had success with is using caulk or glue to seal the cracks they use as doors. While we're on the subject, here's a list of other pests and what will repel them: Aphids - garlic, chives and other alliums, coriander, anise, nasturtium and petunia around fruit trees Borers - garlic, onion, tansy Cabbage moth - mint, hyssop, rosemary, southernwood, thyme, sage, wormwood, celery, catnip, nasturtium Colorado potato beetle - green beans, horseradish, dead nettle, flax, catnip, coriander, tansy, nasturtium Cucumber beetle - tansy, radish Cutworm - tansy Flea beetle - wormwood, mint, catnip, interplant cole crops with tomato Japanese beetle - garlic, larkspur, tansy, rue, white geranium Leafhopper - petunia, geranium Mexican bean beetle - marigold, potato, rosemary, savory, petunia Mites - onion, garlic, chives Nematodes - marigold, salvia, dahlia, calendula, asparagus Slugs - prostrate rosemary, wormwood Squash bug - tansy, nasturtium, catnip Tomato hornworm - borage, marigold, opal basal Whitefly - nasturtium, marigold As you can see, tansy is helpful in controlling many pests. Many of the plants on the list also do double duty as homes for benificial insects too. And do triple duty as being pretty, or eatable, or all the above. Peace, poor_old_dad
Mine is too. I dont know if it worked or not but we have an ants nest UNDER the tile. I went crazy last night and I poured garlic white wine butter sauce all over my kitchen floor. They came out between 2:00-3:30 in the morning, and people thought I were hallucinating because they hid wheneveryone else was around.. So when I came out last night they were forming little letters. "U (Heart) O" which means nothing. But I was fully convinced these were little black magic wiccan ants forming crop circles and symbols in my kitchen. They were plotting something evil. I couldn't vaccum at 3 am considering I live in an apartment and my husband was asleep. So i poured butter all over my floor and it worked and they stayed! It was hard to clean... but they stayed! And then my husband woke up asking me why the hell I poured butter all over our kitchen, and I said "ITS A TRAP!" and he said "it's not working." and i went to go look, and there were thousands upon thousands, and I laughed and i said "BULLSHIT! MY PLAN HAS WORKED THEY HAVE ARRIVED". then we vaccumed them up. Then waited. Then there was more, and we vaccumed those ones too. And we did this all freaking day and now we get like two ants. And we vaccum those. We are slowly killing the colony. But my house smells like butter.
i never thought of peppers...hmmm. weve sealed all the cracks (i thought) in the winter. but i must have missed a few..lol thanks for all your answers. thier driving me crazy. althought they arent getting in the food anywhere. thank goodness.
