Ants in the garden: how to deal with them?
Lyubov Zanina, deputy head of the Rosselkhozcenter branch in the Republic of Tatarstan, tells about pros and cons of living with ants, what benefits they bring, how to deal with them.
The presence of black garden ants in the country is a sign of a very good site. These underground inhabitants prefer healthy soils, good warming of the upper soil layers and moisture capacity of the lower ones, optimal saturation of the soil with air. It is estimated that the average anthill of black garden ants in one June day is able to collect up to two thousand small caterpillars, larvae, eggs, slugs and flies. Garden ants improve soil structure and increase its fertility. Their numerous passages make the earth looser, and this creates favorable conditions for the respiration of plant roots.
Despite the undoubted benefits of ants, close proximity to them also has its rather significant disadvantages. They begin to destroy seeds and seedlings, gnaw on buds and flower petals, eat up sweet roots and berries, infect fruit trees, shrubs and vegetable crops with aphids. By building their anthills in inconvenient places (for example, right in a strawberry bush), ants inhibit the growth of useful plants.
These insects bring both invaluable benefits and significant harm. Depending on what prevails in a particular garden plot, both tactics and a set of methods are chosen.
One of the relatively "humane" methods is the forced eviction of ants. With the onset of dusk, when all the insects return "home", take a shovel and dig out the entire anthill in two or three times. Quickly transfer it along with the inhabitants to a bucket and take it outside the site, preferably into the forest. Pour boiling water over the hole.
In order to prevent aphid ants from reaching young shoots of fruit trees and shrubs, it is necessary to use special glue traps.
And the most extreme measure of control is the use of pesticides, justified only in cases where no means have helped, and the plants in the summer cottage or in the garden are in very bad condition.