3 Natural Ant Control Methods Using Household Ingredients That Actually WORK

[Music] [Music] what is going on everyone welcome to another very exciting episode right here on the mi Gardner Channel I am so excited about today's video because I'm gonna be sharing with you three all-natural pest control methods for ants now ants are something that a lot of people just tend to ignore or they don't really notice until they become a problem and then when they do become a problem they don't know how to get rid of the problem and so these three ways are going to get rid of ants effectively and inexpensively you know I am NOT someone that wants to run to the store and buy some super potent chemicals that I really don't feel safe even using around the garden and also spending a ton of money on them you know ants are something that are very easy to control if you get up on them you stay persistent with them and you know and you just don't deviate from if you if you let them take hold they will take hold they're very aggressive with their you know their colonization and so what we have to do is just kind of nip it in the bud right away and make sure that we stay on it because like I said they are very persistent and if we do that we can effectively control ants for pennies so I really love these methods I'm excited to talk about them because ants are something we get asked I'd say at least 10 or 15 times a day it's probably the most common questions we get at least this time of year because you know during spring ants are not really evident but during summer is when the food the food shortages become more evident and they become more aggressive and get ready to go dormant for the winter so they're stockpiling all that food they'll come into your house they'll get into your garden they'll start expanding their colonies and it just becomes more of an an obvious issue during the heat of summer which is why a lot of these questions start cropping up right around this time of year the first thing I do want to talk about though are the problems that ants can pose you know obviously there are super nuisance in the house they're you know they're annoying to have you just even around the house in general but in the garden specifically which is the kind of the topic of today's video they can wreak a lot of havoc we had ants that colonized our raised beds and this is one of the worst problems you can have you joven aunt of a straight aunt strolls into your garden which obviously they will don't worry and don't freak out but when a colony of ants decides to take up residence in your raised bed or around your raised beds that's what we need to take control and take you know you know have a handle on the issue because they can really pose some serious problems the first one is with seed germination seeds are rich in protein fat and they're just a food source in general for ants I've seen them carrying away lettuce seeds grass seed even they've even eaten bean seeds and so you need that you need to be able to control the ant problem because if you put down fresh seed if you're starting anything from seed they will consume that seed they'll take it back they'll stockpile it in their in their nest and then you'll have very spotty germination the next problem is they over aerate the soil when ants make a colony they make tunnels throughout the soil these tunnels contain a huge amounts of air that plants just are not used to and the plant roots will actually touch those those tunnels and then turn and what the problem is is that ants really love to make tunnels around plant roots because of the fact that the roots hold onto that soil and it prevents their colony from collapsing in on itself giving them a little more security it's like you know it's basically like the foundation of your house and you know the framework of your house it helps kind of hold the house together all those two by fours so essentially the two by fours of the soil are plant roots and that's why that's specifically why a lot of people will plant grass where there's erosion because the roots hold on to that soil that will erode away the third problem that ants pose in the garden are they bring Athens Athens are a soft bodied green insect that basically sucks the life out of your plants they actually feed on the undersides of the leaves sucking all the the sugars that the plant is creating through photosynthesis as a food source and then as a by-product they excrete what's called honeydew honeydew is a sweet substance and the ants take advantage of that sweet substance as a food source so what they do is ants will carry Athens up to the plant basically as a miner and then they will they will basically say okay I got you up to the plant now you get me food and this is a symbiotic relationship that the ants and the aphids have however it's a very negative thing for your plants because not only are the ants then encouraged to live near the plants but they're also bringing Athens up which are killing your plants so it's a double negative and so that's why we really need to we really need to take care of ants in the garden and the fourth and final reason why ants are not good in the garden specifically is because ants eat fungus now you might be thinking yourself well Luke isn't that doing me a favor I don't like blight blights of fungus that's correct blight is a fungus powdery mildew is a fungus however however there are good funguses and bad funguses and the good fungus is that you want are located in the garden around your plant roots it's called mycorrhizae mycorrhizae is a is a fungus that attaches to plant roots and helps to mind minerals as well as increase the root system water resistance drought tolerance it is just an amazing thing to have attached to your plant roots legumes specifically will form them naturally that they attract the the Rhizobium bacteria to the to the root system of the beans that's why when you pull up your beans you'll see these little balls that's Rhizobium that actually will form in nodules on the roots and the thing is that it also is if you inoculate your bed like we use trifecta plus it has it in there but if you inoculate your bed or you use a really super good rich organic matter compost that will have some some micro rise a in there and that will attach to all of your plant roots whether it's onions zucchini tomatoes peppers it really doesn't matter it will actually attach those plant roots as well and the issue is is that those ants will come in and actually feed off of that off of that fungi so you have reduced amount of fungus in your soil which then reduces the amount of nutrients and and just health that your soil has so those are four reasons why ants are a complete no-go in our garden and now we need to get rid of them the first thing we need to do is locate their home as you can see we have a trail of ants and then the trail actually leads right up here into these dead patches this dead patch is where they actually decided to make a colony there's two colonies in this bed here and what we have to do is once we've located where they're coming from the source we need to treat this with our with our actual pest control methods now the reason why you can't just spread these control methods willy-nilly is because they need to be treated at the source if you spread them around willy-nilly they will not have an effect if you just see ants in the garden and you see a trail of them that's fine you have to find the source they're all coming from the source that's what the trail is there for is it's actually a pheromone trail that one ant will lay and it makes basically a train track so what you have to do is you follow that train track back to the source to find where the ants are coming from you have to go at the source because if you just treat the train track well then you've done nothing so the you know the whole purpose behind these three methods are essentially source treated meaning they're going to be effective the last thing you want to do is just waste time and materials by treating a problem that's not even really where the problem is located so just keep that in mind find the source and you'll fix the problem and here we go here it is you can see their anthill number one and here's anthill number two these are the two ant hills that are wreaking havoc and are being bed I'll tell you what that you do it really have to be careful when you're treating an ant problem and you're sitting on the bed that has the ant problem I might get some ants in your pants I had a couple crawling on my leg earlier the first one is one that I don't have in my hands and that's because it's the most readily available and it's actually your hose now the issue is that this method is not really effective for in raised beds because of the fact that we have plants here it's called flooding now if you flood the bed or if you flood the the source they cannot they can't keep colonizing and so they end up moving ants don't like places of low basically low area because that's where water settles if there-there tunnels it collapses their tunnels and also ants can't breathe so they end up leaving to find higher ground the second natural ant control method is cinnamon a cinnamon is a super inexpensive spice you can get at any grocery store even get a giant bottle of it if you really have a problem but the thing with cinnamon is it's super effective if you have ants that are mining fungus cinnamon is anti fungal and so when you sprinkle it around the whole of the you know the tunnel where the ants are coming and going essentially will kill any fungus in that area and they'll lose their food source so they'll have to move now this is something that works only if the ants are currently mining fungus a lot of times ants are out scavenging they're you know they're trying to find dead insects they're trying to find you know honey from your beehives or just a sugar source in general you know lemonade you left out two weeks ago or something like that but you know this still is very effective we found this does work you have to use it pretty copiously and so I'll show you how much we use and you know it's something that try it it might work it's worked for us in the past but it doesn't work all the time it just depends on what the ants are doing at that current stage and annual and you want you also to make sure too that you don't have any rain this if it gets wet really loses a lot of its potency so during the dry season the hot and dry season I find this is the most effective then if you did it like in springtime when it rains a lot because once it gets wet it just pretty much washes away so let's use the let's use the cinnamon now so all we're going to do is just take the cinnamon and use a copious amount of it completely cover not only all yeah anthill but the surrounding area as well nice thick layer of it make sure to cover the whole up and that's all you have to do and the final all-natural ant control method that we use definitely the most effective of them all one we go to if nothing else works is borax and sugar now borax is all-natural it's just boron and sodium and it's commonly used as fabric softener however it's very effective at killing ants however a lot of times people make they make it too runny they add too much water what you want to do is we made this up in our kitchen it's super simple all we did was we added one part sugar to one part borax now the reason why you can't just leave it in it's dried your annular form is because the ants will just pick out they won't readily eat the borax they'll just pick out the sugar and you'll just give them a food source so what you want to do is add just enough water to make it a paste once it is a paste they can actually carry that they can carry that paste back to the anthill and feed the rest the ants with it if you make it too much of a liquid what can happen is they'll actually drink the liquid and it ends up killing them too quickly they don't even make it back to the anthill in time and so what we want to do is make it a paste and it also helps if we apply it right at the source because that way ants are not carrying it a long distance they're getting it and they're taking it right down and back into the colony rather than applying it 20 30 feet away where we see the ants you see the can I see those train tracks those those ant trails you can treat those ant trails and it will basically just bring more ants out there and the the caller will keep sending ants out to the sugar source and the answers won't make it back so while it's effective it's not nearly as effective and quick as putting it right at the source where the ants are gonna swarm it because ants are advantageous they'll take advantage of a food source that's much closer rather than far away and so feed them right at the source this sugar and borax paste and what they'll do is they'll take it carry it down feed the ants hopefully feed between because once you once you feed the Queen the Queen dies can't lay any more eggs and the colony is pretty much toast so this is a very effective method and it's very natural so there you go super inexpensive and this might cost a couple pennies the cinnamon might cost a couple pennies and the water might cost a couple pennies or free if you have well water or a couple pennies if that well uses electricity I know how you guys get you guys are always getting you at all the fine details I got you this time so either way all three of these methods are all-natural and they only cost pennies so I hope you guys enjoyed I'm having fun in the garden today I hope you guys are as well I'm gonna apply this to the beds now and what we're gonna do is we're just gonna put them we're just gonna put it in like a paste just drizzle it right around the hole they'll come out they'll feed on it they'll take it down problem solved so I hope you guys enjoy to help you learn something new as always this is Luke from the mi Gardner channel reminding you to subscribe if you're not yet already throw a like up there if you enjoyed this video share with a friend if you think they'd enjoy it as well and we'll catch you all on tomorrow's episode girl big girl home everyone bye

Channel: undefined

Views: 398,702

Rating: 4.8427172 out of 5

Keywords: gardening tip, pest control, extermination, Premiere_Elements_2018, ant hill, method, ant control, cinnamon, organic, ants and cinnamon, ant, natural ant, gardening, natural ant killer, ant farm, ants and borax, water, migardener, how to get rid of ants, borax, spray, garden tip, controling ants, sugar, bug spray, ants

Id: vAeQ6SaeKvw

Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 20 2019