how do i eradicate ants?

[Derry]

my nan has a yard, where all her pots & plants are, but out the back of the yard is a small garden. its seriously overgrown, but my mom and i are thinking of cultivating it - cheaper than an allotment =]

howeverrrrrrrrrrr, we were dumping dead plants and emptying urns and stagnant water all on it today, and there were swarms and swarms of ants. millions of 'em, climbing all over my trainers (so i was ok) but my mom was wearing open sandals, and now has severely bitten feeties =[ i couldnt really tell if they were black or red ants, possibly both?

i was reading this.. http://www.selfsufficientish.com/pests.htm#ants and it seems like a possibility once the land has been cleared enough to grow stuff, but what i actually wanna know, in a long winded kinda way, is:
a) how do we either get rid completely of the ants before working on the patch, or
b) how do we reduce them before we can get planting?



alsoalsoaslo, my nan gets ants in her kitchen.. she thinks theyre little black flys (bless), so how can we stop them getting in there? she lives in a council hoose

thankyaaaaaar!

[Cloud]

The kettle of boiling water in to the nest relay does work, although it's not always obvious where the nest is, and there might be more than one. Once you start cultivating the land I think the problem will reduce. I don't find red ant like cultivated, dug over land, so they'll not come back. Black ants will happily live under paving and cracks in walls so might need to be 'persuaded' to leave a few times.

The ants come in to the house forging for food (usually black ants). They leave scent trails other ants follow. To get rid of them inside you need to be able to clean everywhere they have been. And remove every last trace of food crumbs or they will be back. We have had the problem in our kitchen. Every now and they they get back in and we have to deep clean again. Ours get in at the back of the units where we can't see so it is impossible for us to stop them entirely.

[hedgewitch]

Ants generally won't bother you. If you've upset their nest then they will soon bugger orf somewhere else. HOWEVER - if this does not prove the case....then a trail of uncooked Pasta leading them somewhere where you don't mind them being will do the trick.

[wolfsong]

Oh yeah... try here, haven't tried any of the methods, but i'm about to try the curry powder.

[lsm1066]

I've found sugar mixed with borax to be pretty effective. They carry it back to the nest and it poisons the lot of them. That's if you can get hold of borax nowadays! I've stockpiled.
Lynne

[Millymollymandy]

I've never tried to kill them outside because I think they've every right to live there too - but I'm very wary of red ants as I'm highly allergic to their bites. There's one of their nests right in the middle of one of my strawberries so I have to be careful picking! Black ants do have nests in cultivated land here and there. The worst place really is the lawn when you stop in sandals or are doing some weeding then suddenly find them running around over your feet!

I'd suggest wearing boots/wellies whilst you work in the garden and I think that once you do some digging you'll disturb the nests enough that hopefully they'll go elsewhere. Some will come back but as long as it's manageable you should be able to live with them, if there are only a few nests, which is pretty normal really.

Chooks and greenwoodpeckers come in handy for keeping their numbers down too!

[Andy Hamilton]

I was reading an old gardening book the other day and someone mentions that ants are good in the potato patch as they turn the soil into a fine tilth and tend to leave the spuds alone. So plant spuds on the ants I guess.

[Derry]

i think we're ganna recruit the family [cause theres lots of us] and then have a mass gardening day.. strim it all down, clear it out.. hopefully the ants will move on. might get some paving slabs so my nan can sit out in her garden [shes 91 :)]