Hi! Patti, Welcome to the list. I am in Port Lincoln, Australia and there are a lot of us from Oz and NZ on the list.
For most ants, the easiest way is to use Borax. It is a white powder and sold in supermarkets in the same sort of area as Moth balls, Mentholated Spirits, Turps etc. Get a a small plastic container with a tight fitting lid. I use one about twice the size of match box, sold in sets of several in the plastics section of the super market. Make a couple of holes, big enough for the target ants, up quarter of inch or so from the bottom. Mix half a level tea spoon of Borax with about two or three of honey or jam. Place in the bottom of the container and seal. Place in an ant trail of the target specie. The ants will soon find it and take it home and eat it. It dehydrates the gut and kills them. The ant typically eats it's own dead, so the small amount of Borax will kill many ants. It generally takes four to ten days to wipe out an ant nest. Should another colony take over the same nest before the soil moisture dissipates the Borax, they will also use it. The small amount used is not a problem in the soil. The good thing about this method is that you can take out one target type of ant and leave other useful ones untouched. Gil Patti Berg wrote: > Hello everyone, > I have been enjoying the posts here since the first of April. My name > is Patti and I've been gardening on just a half an acre for four years > and learning on my own. I'm a bit lost right now though on how to solve > the same problem I have every year and one common to everyone in my > area. In Georgia, where I live, we have fire ants who like to build > their homes in the most inconvenient places--like right around my > garden. I've tried to eliminate them with cayenne pepper which works > after about four days but they only leave to start again a few feet > away. Does anyone know how to rid an area of fire ants? > > Patti.....
