To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>, Midwestpermaculture <midwestpermaculture@yahoogroups.com>, dreamtime@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [permaculture] Ants & how to make them go away
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:34:44 -0500
18 months ago I posted the following question of sustain.org & 38
replies later I still haven't found a solution to being overrun by
ants. Below is the post & a link to the ongoing discussion. I
invite any of you with brilliant or crackpot ideas about solutions to
join the discussion. (You'll have to register to post). The
original question is posted below.
On our 3 acre permaculture demonstration we have a constant battle
with ants building their hills in the most unthoughtful places like
the middle of a path or surrounding a grapevine. They have also
completely taken over a cement & bottle planter that we built some
years back that is maybe 6 feet in diameter. I'm sure they're
thinking we built them this ant castle specially to suit their needs.
I'm interested in what organic controls folks have tried, the ones
that work & the ones that don't work.
Dan Hemenway, a well known permaculture teacher, talks about taking
his camp stove out into the field & boiling water & scalding the
critters.
I've used chicken tractors over the top of a hill & they seem to do
fine getting most of them but it's hard to tell if that is a humane
assignment for a couple chickens.
Has anyone tried boric acid (& is that considered organic)?
With the ants that have taken over my planter I was thinking of just
building a number of wood fires in it over the summer & maybe
eventually that would get rid of them.
Still I think there is even a simpler solution that I'm not thinking of.