Ants harmful or beneficial in veggie garden- help!
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I used container soil for my raised veggie garden and the plants are beautiful and producing. Now there are ants in the garden and I am not sure if they should be there or if I need to find a way to get them out of the garden? What should I do? Thank you for the advice!
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Apply food grade diatomaceous earth.
I did a quick Google search and found this: Garden ants can actually be beneficial in the vegetable garden - they act as pollinators by crawling around from bloom to bloom looking for nectar, and they can kill off harmful caterpillars. These ants do not typically harm vegetation by striping leaves from plants. Jun 18, 2009
Also, if you use the diatomaceous earth, it could kill good insects as well. The way it works is when a bug crawls through it, it destroys it's outer shell, thus killing it. It's a great product but you don't need to worry about ants in your garden. in the house, another story.
Depends on the ant type. Farming ants farm aphids. They really like to farm root aphids. They can cause tremendous harm to your plants. I fight the battle with them the entire growing season.
If they are not harming the plants, I would not worry. Just hose off the plants before harvest so you don't bring them into the house; once they get into the house then you have a big problem.