Steps to Natural Ant Control

[Guest guest]

Ant season is in full swing here in southern California. Below is a

version of a natural ant spray that I make from scratch. I use orange

essential oil plus Dr. Bronner's liquid soap and water in a spray

bottle. I think any citrus oil will do (including those citrus oil

cleaners you can get from the HFS). It melts their exoskeletons and

destroys the trail pheromone they leave for other ants to find their

way into your house.

 

http://www.antcolony.org/natural_ant_control.htm

 

Andy Lopez The Invisible Gardener

Steps to Natural Ant Control

 

1 Find out how they are entering your home and make a note of it. Be

sure to remember how they are getting into your house. Best way to

find out is to follow them going into your home. You will be coming

back to this later.

 

2 Humans provide ants and other insects, creatures etc., a lot of food

and make it available to them. These same humans rarely clean up

enough after themselves. So find out why the ants are entering your

home and remove any sources of food and water that they are after.

 

3 Cleaning up after yourselves, after meals and throwing away the

trash in sealed bags is very important.

 

4 Spray inside the house:

To get Immediate Relief from ants inside the house buy 8 oz bottle of

Dr Bronners Peppermint, Lavender, or any other natural soap. Go to

your local drug store and buy 1 oz of Citronella oil, Pennyroyal oil,

Cinnamon oil or any other type of Essential oil like rose oil or tea

tree oil. Mix the two together and label it ant control spray or see

label offer below. Add 5 tablespoons per quart water. Add to sprayer

and spray inside house where ants are seen. spray around the outside

of the house. Should be done as often as needed. This is not a long

term solution but will provide you immediate help. Spray or wipe

kitchen counters with this mixture is fine except I would use less

inside, say 1 tablespoon per quart water is fine, stronger if you have

a real bad problem. The essential oil increases the effectiveness of

the soap. Keeping the ants away longer. Spray any areas they are seen

in. If you are having a really bad ant problem, try using any natural

dog shampoo instead that has pyrethrum. I also like using Green Ban

which is a natural shampoo with natural oils that are very effective

against ants.

 

5 Spray outside the house:

Spray outdoor trash and recycling bins with any natural soap. I

especially like using Dr Bronners soaps. Use the same formula as in

#4 to spray the containers and the area around it with. You can also

use any citrus based cleaner like Citra Solv at 1 oz per quart water.

Spray around the outside of the house and along any trails that you

see them

 

6 Remove all spoiled fruits, vegetables, candy, cat or dog food, or

any broken containers that the ants can get into for food as they will

eat almost any thing! Also remove any containers that have sitting

water other then your animals water. Never let plants sit in water too

long, drain water trays and allow to dry. The above holds true for

outside.

 

7 After you have sprayed the inside and around the outside of the

house, you then can seal up any cracks or entrances used by the ants

to get inside. A safe method is to use Elmers glue or any natural

glue. To insure that the ants do not eat into the glue I would add a

little bit of boric acid, mix it well and squeeze into hole. Another

method is silicon caulk. If you use this type, I would still add boric

acid to prevent it from being eaten!

 

8 Clean up around the outside of the house and garden.

Control the ants and you will control the aphids, whiteflies,

mealybugs and a variety of other insects in your garden. Ants herd

sap-feeding insects which excrete " nectar " a sugary favorite of ants,

other insects and many diseases will grow on this substance i.e. see

sooty mold, etc..

 

9 To keep ants off trees you must first attend to why the ants are

climbing up the tree.

If the tree is sick then address its needs first. This will reduce

stress and will increase health to tree. Greater health means less

ants! Ants also will climb up your fruit tree if it has sweet fruit!

To keep ants off these trees you can either try using Tree Tangelfoot

(apply a band of duck tape, with the sticky side out, around the tree

trunk to prevent Tangelfoot damage as it gets hard) or you can diver

the ants by placing an Ant Cafe at the base of the tree and painting a

band around the trunk of the tree with a mixture of Garden Grade DE

and Tabasco. Just paint a band around the tree trunk, this will keep

the ants off the tree.

 

10 Place ant cafes around house for long term ant control. Make sure

you maintain them. See Ant Cafe for more info on using.

 

11 A good natural repellent is Natural Pipe or Chewing Tobacco,

Compost, Molasses, mixed in a tea bag, Dr Bronners Lavender Soap and

Citrus Oil poured over the anthill. A good formula is to make a batch

of compost tea (except you add 1 cup chewing tobacco or any natural

tobacco you have to the compost) and allow it to sit in the sun for a

few days, then the day before you use it, add 1 cup molasses per

gallon tea. Allow it to sit for another day. Then add 1 cup citrus oil

or citrus based cleaner like Citra Solv per gallon tea you have and

add 1 cup per gallon of the Dr Bronners lavender soap. This is the

liquid that you pour over the ant hills.

 

12 To avoid ant problems remove the chemicals!

A healthy property will have less of an ant problem then an un healthy

property. Learning to use soap as a natural spray repellent is

important as well as learning to keep ants out of the house. We can

teach you these things so that you can help yourselves. Remember, the

ants will not go away, so learn to live with them!

 

This is your immediate help. This may or may not work on the long term

bases, this depends on how good a gardener you are. If you are serious

about controlling ants in your home and garden, then I would suggest

that you join IGA and take The Invisible Gardeners Natural Ant Control

Program. We can go thru it together to help you with this problem. I

have helped thousands around the world, I can help you! Or as a member

you can follow the easy steps yourself!