Make Your Yard ANT FREE FOREVER In 3 Easy Steps

what's going on gardeners it's Thursday February 9th and it is starting to warm up here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina and that means the insects will be waking up soon so on today's video I'm going to share with you three steps to make your yard and garden ant free and keep it that way forever this worked brilliantly for me and if you follow these steps to a t it will work for you as well if you have a problem with ants specifically biting ants and fire ants taking up residency in your yard and garden you need to understand that that is a symptom of a larger problem and if you don't wrap your head around the problem because ants outnumber us Millions to one they will just keep coming so for this reason this video is going to be very detailed because I want you to understand fully why this is happening so please watch the video in its entirety so you understand the concepts and why I'm telling you to do what you're doing if you sit through this whole video you won't regret it if you're new to the Channel please consider subscribing and hitting the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon storefront and spreadshow up in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated I moved to North Carolina from the Northeast in 2017 and the reasons why I moved here was for the warmer weather more sunshine and to wear flip-flops all year long no matter what the weather or the season so I purchased this property in 2018 and when I purchased this property it was nothing but a clear-cut Sandy lot and much to my chagrin it was infested with biting ants and fire ants anytime I go outside in my flip-flops I would get bites on my ankles and in between my toes my dream of wearing flip-flops all year round was shattered and I knew I had to do something about that simply targeting and destroying the ant colonies was not working every single time I destroy one two or three would just pop up right next to it I had to figure out why they were coming and solve the problem I'm an engineer by trade so I put on my engineering hat and what I figured out was the problem was my soil itself here where I live I have very Firm Sandy well-draining soil that is exactly what ants want to build their colonies in because it holds shape they can dig those intricate networks of tunnels and not have them collapse so it didn't matter how often I would try and Destroy and police my yard for these ant colonies because they would just keep coming because the soil that made up my yard was a gold mine it was exactly what they wanted to build their nests in if you go searching your yard for ant hills you will find the Mounds around the ant hills always look like perfect Sugar Sand like you purchased a commercial bag of play sand from a big box store that you would fill a child sandbox with if this soil type is present in your yard ants are going to flock to it because it holds the shape of their colonies perfectly so you need to deal with that reality and I have a three-step process that will help you accomplish this the first step will be a defensive strategy that will try and dissuade ants from coming onto your property the Second Step will be an offensive strategy to help deal with the ants that do slip through your defenses and the third step will be a long-term transformational strategy to change your yard so ants will no longer ever want to take up residency in your yard and garden again for your convenience I'll make sure to link the products that I use in this video down in my Amazon storefront in the video description underneath the list disease management and Pest Control I'll also put a couple of direct links in the video description as well the first step is going to be your defensive strategy and that is going to be to spread insect killing lawn granules around your lawn with a spreader and the reason why you're doing this is you want to create a barrier of sorts around your yard these granules are made out of synthetic pyrothoids which are contact Killers for almost all insects so when you spread them around your lawn for any Scout ants that are looking around trying to locate a good location to set up a new Colony they will over the course of walking through your lawn eventually become uncontaminated in the poisons and then they will die so they won't be able to go back to wherever the main Nest is and alert all their friends to build a new home on your property now when it comes to application schedule everybody needs to make their first application in late winter or early spring right around the time that insects are going to start coming to life again because you want to defend your yard and garden these last for up to about three months so for most of us we will all pretty much have to make an application again right in the beginning of Summer which will be three months later then for those of us with very long growing Seasons that live in the Deep South we may need to make a third application in the fall again for those of you with shorter Seasons that get Frost in September and October you may only have to go with two applications a year and when you spread these granules all around your lawn that is going to be your defense for your yard that is going to keep most of the pests away especially ants but before you go and use these synthesized pyrothoid granules you have to understand a few things you can only apply these to your lawn you cannot apply these to your garden despite what the bags say if you put these in your garden you can have detrimental long-term effects synthetic pyrothoid granules are created in labs to mimic the toxic effects of pyrethrin pyrethrin is a natural extract made from the Chrysanthemum flower and if you follow my channel you know I use natural pyrethrin in my garden all the time for insect control in the dead of summer when my insect pressure here is off the charts natural pyrethrin is a natural product and as a result it's very prone to oxidation so sunshine and fresh air oxygen will oxidize it and Decay it rapidly so when I spray my garden after Sunset it is mostly burned off by the morning and any poison that is potent will burn off as soon as the sun rises so it's completely safe to eat your vegetable Garden the very next day after you spray with pyrethrin because the half-life is so rapid it decays very quickly synthetic pyrothoids on the other hand are made in Laboratories to have the same effects as pyrethrin but to last for months and months they're made to resist oxidation so when you place those granules on your lawn the toxic effects will persist for months now while it does say on the bag that it's safe to use in fruit and vegetable gardens that's only because pyrothoids and pyrethrin is very low toxicity to human beings but it is extremely toxic to all insects and actually cats as well so while it's safe to go out in your garden and spray after Sunset a natural pyrethrin product because it'll burn off by the Morning by the time all the bees and the good insects come back when you spread those granules in your garden they will make your soil toxic to Insects for months so you'll be killing things like earthworms and roly-polies and all your good beneficial bugs in your your soil that are composting things for you so never put that stuff in your garden only put it in your lawn as a barrier around your property now you may be asking well if I put it down on my lawn aren't I killing a whole bunch of earthworms and other good bugs too and to that I'm going to say possibly there is some risk to that generally speaking it is going to kill the insects that are crawling along the surface of your lawn and that are only a few inches deep earthworms usually are several inches deep into the soil and the poison may not penetrate that far so in my experience my garden is in the middle of my yard and the earthworms make it down probably pretty deep across my lawn and into my garden no problem my entire Garden area is just teeming with earthworms so using those granules on your lawn only seems to be relatively low risk it probably will kill some because nothing is ever zero percent or a hundred percent but if you have this big problem with ants and other pests you may not have a choice so you really have to weigh your options here there is no perfect answer here but I think this is the best method for people with really bad problems with ants and other bugs now as I previously mentioned no defensive strategy is one hundred percent eventually some ants will find your yard they will make it through your defenses and they will take up residency so what you want to do is have an offensive strategy and that leads me to my second tip get yourself an ant bait product like this these ant bait products are fantastic they are specifically designed to destroy colonies and what they are is they are a poison that is very attractive to the ants that they think is food so all you have to do is put one teaspoon of this product right outside of their ant hill a few inches away and the Ants will come out and greedily take it back to all of the other ants and the queen in their colonies and they will all feed on it and in a matter of 24 hours it will kill the entire Colony once you spread those lawn granules and you get an overall handle on the insect pop population in your yard you then Target any colonies that do pop up and they kill them very quickly now I will say there are natural alternatives that you can use instead of using this product you can make your own mixes out of borax however I will say that these products work a whole lot better and they're a lot more convenient this jug right here was only a couple of dollars and there's still plenty left and this is my third season that I'm using it so for a 10 to 15 investment you can go for many years with a very convenient product like this if you want to go the natural route you can look up recipes for making your own borax solution as well so what I do is once a week I take a walk around my entire yard and I search for any ant hills that may have slipped through the cracks and I put about one teaspoon of the granules next to the ant hill and the best time to do this is first thing in the morning when the Sun rises because ants are most active in the morning up until this point every single ant hill that I've shown you in this video so far all have one thing in common they are all from my front yard I can't show you an ant hill in my backyard because they don't exist I've created a permanent solution to ants and they no longer have any desire to be in my backyard at all and I'm going to tell you exactly how to make your yard ant proof forever the third step to make your yard ant proof forever is to change your cultural practices so the ants are no longer attracted to your yard and that is to transform your sandy soil into an organic matter Rich loam and that is what I've done to my backyard my front yard unfortunately has to stay a lawn due to HOA rules and for resale value of my house eventually in the future my backyard on the other hand I've turned into a massive garden and an Edible Landscaping paradise and I've added so much organic matter to my yard that ants no longer want to come into the back and I'm going to explain this in Greater detail as I mentioned earlier in this video ants need to build their colonies in Firm Sandy soil that drains well and holds structure and and they can't build in heavy organic matter because this stuff doesn't hold structure it just completely falls apart if they dig their tunnels in this they're all going to collapse so by simply adding lots of compost and mulch to an area there will be nowhere that ants can build and over time you will transform that soil to a place that ants can never build a colony in ever again my entire backyard is lined with edible landscaping I put these beds in everywhere and on top of all of these beds is a four inch thick layer of compost and mulch so if I dig into this soil all I get is organic matter there's nowhere for the ants to build all over the perimeter of my yard it is off limits because it won't hold structure to form an ant colony with my garden I had to take a slightly different approach all of my raised beds are filled with 100 locally made turkey compost and as a result there's no way ants could ever build in my garden beds themselves however it used to be that all of the walkways and rows in between the beds were the Native sandy soil and as a result they would be plagued with ant hills and anytime I walked out into my garden with flip-flops on I would get bitten by the various biting ants and fire ants that live here so what I did was I lined this entire area with this weed mat this weed barrier product right here and that is completely stopped the ants from coming and making colonies in my walkway and I'll make sure to link to these various weed barrier products in my Amazon storefront down in the video description underneath the category list Garden accessories so check that out if you want to buy weed mat these weed mats these weed barriers they're all about five years old and they're still pretty much like new and I use them all around my yard I really love them and I highly recommend them if you have a problem with ants in your walkway they are a great solution so between the perimeter beds around the entire perimeter of my backyard that I use for Edible Landscaping and my garden air area and all the various weed mattings that I've put down I've taken away all of the sandy soil that the ants want to build in so there's no reason for them to come into the backyard and build ant colonies the only place they can still build any colonies is this one strip of grass that I have remaining here and the only reason why I maintain this is for my dog Dale so he can run around and do his Zoomies I just can't take this away from them and I'm able to Simply use those insect granules to control this area by simply putting them down two to three times a year this whole grassy patch right here remains ant-free so now that you've watched this whole video hopefully you now understand exactly why your yard is so desirable for ants to build their colonies in and take up permanent residency and if you adopt this three-step process that will help you deal with the ants both in the short term and transform your soil long term so you never have to deal with these ants Desiring your property ever again so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like like button subscribe to the channel and ring that notification Bell so you're notified when we release more videos like these again if you're curious about any of the products that I used in this video or that I use in my garden in general in real life they are all linked down to my Amazon storefront in the video description so expand that description and click on the Amazon link to see all the stuff and while you're there please check out my spreadshop for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and hope to see all of you again on the next video hey Dale guess what today is it's February 2nd that means it's Hound Hog Day Happy Hound Hog Day Dale what are you going to be hogging today are you hogging for your hungries are you starting to get hungry buddy I see that look in your eyes I see a little piggy in there does Mr Hound hog want his dinner no Dale is not amused he's not too happy with me right now but he'll be really happy when he's chomping down on his hungries

Channel: The Millennial Gardener

Views: 1,401,861

Keywords: ant free, getting rid of ants, defending against ants, ant prevention, preventing ants, ant control, keeping ants out of garden, how to keep ants away, ant bait, fire ants, biting ants, ants, ant, easy, garden, gardening, raised bed, vegetable garden, organic gardening, gardening tips, garden tips, gardening tips and tricks, gardening hacks, garden hacks, food forest, edible landscaping, growing, plants, vegetables, how to, diy, millennial gardener, the millennial gardener

Id: pr521FO4sMY

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 13 2023