Keep the Ants from Marching In!
Are ants infiltrating your home? Try these surefire natural pest deterrents!
Venturing outdoors for a leisurely picnic or a brief repose on the patio? Protect children playing barefoot in the grass from ant bites. Try these two natural remedies will ward off invasive ants.
Fire ants recently set up camp just off our patio, beside the walkway, building more than one mound. Being so close to the house, we want to keep the area free of biting ants and toxic chemicals. Here’s our nontoxic way to rid ants from the yard and patio. If you have young children, you don’t want their playtime ruined by painful fire ant bites. If you discover a fire ant colony in your yard, here are two safe and natural ant remedies, that won’t harm you or the environment.
Fortunately the refreshing scent of peppermint is offensive to ants. This fragrant, natural spray is safe to use indoors or out, whether you spot ants on your kitchen counter or porch. Take a spray bottle on your next outing, to use on a picnic table or around your picnic blanket before dining, to discourage ants from invading your lunch.
Ant Spray
This fragrant spray doubles as room freshener and ant deterrent.
4 oz. water
2 T. vodka
15 drops peppermint essential oil
5 drops cinnamon essential oil
Mix above ingredients in a spray bottle. Shake and spray as needed.
Diatomaceous Earth
Wondering what Diatomaceous Earth is and how it works? It is powdered shell flour, a natural product composed of ground diatoms (a type of algae). The tiny, white crystals aren’t harmful to human touch or consumption, but will effectively eliminate soft bodied ants and other pests like fleas.
To use on a fire ant mound, cover the top of the mound thoroughly with the powder (be sure to purchase “food grade”). Stir the mound with a stick and apply more diatomaceous earth. Only the ants that come in contact with the powder will be destroyed, as it does not penetrate deep into the colony like chemical poisons. You may need to make more than one application to eliminate the entire colony. If ants are making a trail across your porch, deck or patio, lightly dust them with a coat of Diatomaceous Earth.
Diatomaceous Earth is also safe to use for insect control in the garden or greenhouse. Sprinkle it onto plants to deter harmful insects. Apply a ring of Diatomaceous Earth around the perimeter of a raised garden bed to keep ants at bay. You’ll need to reapply after a rain.
Be careful not to breathe in the powder.
Deborah Tukua
Deborah Tukua is a natural living, healthy lifestyle writer and author of 7 non-fiction books, including Pearls of Garden Wisdom: Time-Saving Tips and Techniques from a Country Home, Pearls of Country Wisdom: Hints from a Small Town on Keeping Garden and Home, and Naturally Sweet Blender Treats. Tukua has been a writer for the Farmers' Almanac since 2004.
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Sorry to say, commercial ant traps like sticky box traps work a bit but will fail to deter others from invading homes or back yards. Pure vinegar works well but do not use it on lawns nor close to plants. I found those commercial little metal circular cans with bait to be a band aid approach, and like other voicers say, boiling water works but try to stay away from harsh chemicals that can endanger pets and young children Good luck…
Nothing works for fire ants quite like a big pot of boiling water. Two applications and they are done. After the first application you will see hundreds of dead ants around the mound. Second application usually does the trick.
Our 160 year old family home has never been plagued with termites. Why? Because ants loathe termites & we respect & coexist with the tiny ant.
We must have contented ants, as I don’t ever recall ants ever entering our home………except perhaps, for the stray ant who entered, having hitch hiked in on a picked flower.
I had several mounds around the walkway and in flower beds. I used boiling hot water to
get rid of them. Hot water will kill grass but in places where there is no grass, it works great.
I found a 50/50 mixture of borax (environmentally friendly product used for laundry and storing frozen fishing roe) mixed with icing sugar works quite well. Ants are nuisance pests, and are resilient. Sprinkle the mixture along ant paths, and on top of hills, we even put a little in the pantry and within days the little buggers are gone. Please be careful when using this idea with young children or pets around. Do not clump it on the grass as it will burn as it suffocates the spot. The ants will be gone and not reappear for several weeks. The icing sugar is the attractant and the borax will be taken down to share with the nest to destroy them. Reapply after rain periods or watering the lawn, it works…..
A few years back I had a bad case of ants on my kitchen counter…….. I just mixed equal parts of water and vinegar and sprayed the counters window sills and threshold……… In a few days they were gone, never returned……………
Boric acid power will kill sugar ant’s
The exterminator, cinnemon didn’t seem to work. Only thing that might have worked was the peppermint, spearmint, eycupliptis citris scented cleaner kept the spiders away and mice, ants-NO! They ran over the cinnimon and baking soda.
Tried exterminator,,didn’t work, I don’t know what he is using but spiders and roaches, ants are thriving like never before! They are building & escavating all around us, stirring up all kinds of varmin,,like mice also!! Daddy long legs are horrible! Anyway, baking soda sorta worked,,,for mice the glue pads are working, for ants,,cinnimon didnt work! Mint and spearmint , peppermint OILS are VERY EXPENSIVE. Hard to find. Euculiptis oil was cheaper and worked good, got it at Kroger grocery store,,found out they have it at just SOME of the stores,,it sells right away! So does peppermint oil,,goes fast! Found some tiny teeny bottles in the baking dept. I will never build in the woods, undeveloped land again!! Mice, roaches, ants, spiders, racoons and deer are a nuci
ence, they poop and eat your plants and trees,,no nature for me!
Borax & maple syrup. Worked like a charm!