How to Kill Ants under Garden Soil

If you have ants in your garden soil you probably don’t want to use toxic pesticide to get rid of them. You may be growing vegetables and certainly don’t want toxic products spread all over the top of them.

Even if the ants are hiding under the garden soil, they will come up to feed and this is the best place to get them. The most safe and effective way to go about this is with bait.

There are a few different types of bait available to you. If you want to find out which is the best one to kill your garden ants you simply need to find out what they are eating. You can do this by putting out some protein, carbohydrate and maybe some sweets.

When you discover what the ants are mostly feeding on , you can choose a bait. Some baits are protein based, others are sugar based.

The worker ants are the ones who will take the bait and bring it back to the colony. The worker ants cannot physically consume the bait so they will feed it to the larvae in the colony. The larvae will then create a byproduct which the worker ants and the queen consume. In this way, you are killing off the entire colony in all of the life stages.

For your garden, a boric acid based bait is the way to go if you are concerned about safety. Boric acid actually contains half the toxicity of table salt. Ant baits may also be mixed with a cornmeal or may contain a simple syrup such as Taro.

If you are so inclined, you can make your own ant bait. Mix peanut butter with boric acid. You need to be aware of the ratio because if your bait contains too much boric acid, the ants will avoid it. You should have a 100/1 peanut butter to boric acid ratio. This can then be spread in the garden.

Boric acid can be found almost anywhere you can find pest control products or at your local pharmacist. Thankfully, ants can very easily be killed in the garden safely and naturally without hurting your plants.