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Re: Eggplant ants

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

In a message dated 6/3/00 7:39:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
billmissen@sprint.ca writes:

<< My father-in-law
 | suggested I just put Ortho ant killer around the
 | eggplants base. Then the ants won't be able to even
 | get to the flowers to eat the stems off. I'll let you
 | know how it goes but if anyone wants to suggest
 | something natural before I use the Ortho stuff, let me
 | know!! >>

Hi Valerie,
   Generally ants themselves won't do much damage to your plants. They may 
chew some strawberries or some other sweet things, but I've never seen them 
do much else. The big problem with ants is that they like to "farm" aphids. 
Ants like the sweet sticky stuff that aphids secrete and aphids can do 
serious damage to your crops. Before you start throwing poison around your 
garden I would suggest putting your old coffee grounds around the base of 
your eggplants (or any other plants that have ants all over them) I've had 
quite a bit of luck with this very simple, non poisonous  solution to the ant 
problem.
   If the ants are being attracted to the plants because the plants already 
have aphids, give the plants a good washing with a hard spray from your 
garden hose and try to attract lady bugs to the garden. Lady bugs love to 
munch on aphids. 
   Good luck.
Jim K


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