Make Your Yard ANT FREE FOREVER In 3 Easy Steps

In this video, I share 3 easy steps to make your yard ant free forever! Ants in your yard and garden can be a nuisance, and fire ants and biting ants can cause serious health hazards. Preventing ants is key to enjoying your yard and garden. Luckily, permanent ant control is possible with the steps outlined in this video!


TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Getting Rid Of Ants Intro
1:07 Why Ants Love Your Yard
3:25 Step 1: Defending Against Ants
8:09 Step 2: Offensive Strategy
9:48 Step 3: Permanent Ant Prevention
12:52 Preventing Ants Summary
14:25 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about keeping ants out of garden beds and how to keep ants away from your yard, have questions about growing fruit trees or want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and "how to" garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8A

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© The Millennial Gardener

#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #antcontrol #insectcontrol

[TheMillennialGardener]

If you enjoyed this video, please "Like" and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 Getting Rid Of Ants Intro
1:07 Why Ants Love Your Yard
3:25 Step 1: Defending Against Ants
8:09 Step 2: Offensive Strategy
9:48 Step 3: Permanent Ant Prevention
12:52 Preventing Ants Summary
14:25 Adventures With Dale

[billthorne]

i use dry ice, a hot brick and a big soup pot. Place the hot brick next to the ant hill. Put the dry ice on top of the brick. Cover the brick and dry ice with the big soup pot making a solid seal with the ground. Put a weight on the soup pot to keep it in place. The CO2 released from the dry ice will penetrate the deepest areas of the nest -- ants, gophers or whatever underground pest you're pursuing -- and put them permanently asleep, leaving no toxic residue.

[tressastanton]

Grits works amazingly on any piles. The ant eats the grit, swells up and dies. The whole mound is gone! I have been using grits for over 10 years. Use at least half a box and if the mound is huge a whole box. I have only have to do a second application a handful amount of times. Really works and organic.

[lynlalalala]

I personally don't like to use anything on my garden that I can't use with my bare hands. For ant hills and ground wasp nests; I squirt 1/2 to 1 cup of Dawn into the hole, then use the garden hose to soak the Dawn down into the hole. For the ground wasps; apply early morning or evening, after the wasps are in their nests. Works every time!

[carolynmcbride]

My dad used to trade a shovelful from one anthill with another & they would kill each other off...Worked pretty good!

[trinatj]

Your channel popped up on my algorithm because my daughter and I was chatting about homesteading and gardens; we’re from NJ and now reside in Charlotte. Your channel has been a Godsend. I’ve been binge watching all week. Thank you for sharing a wealth of knowledge!!!

[gcdcpakmbs]

I use a totally organic solution. In the growing season 1. Put down organic fertilizer. 2. Put down dry molasses. 3. Spray with Actively aerated compost tea, or use a product like Medina Soil activator to populate with beneficial microorganisms. 2. Cover with 1/2" of compost. Water like you normally water your grass. Re-activate the microorganism (in step 3) once a month for 3 months. Your soil will be healthier, your garden will do better provided you are gardening organically. I do this and outside my property line there are dozens and dozens of fire ant mounds. Nothing on my property at all. It is simply too hostile an environment for ants, fleas, ticks, and termites. And the bees and butterflies flourish. After a rain, I sometimes get a couple of fireant mounds. I can either treat them with orange oil and molasses, or just wait a couple of weeks - they'll move on.

[adriankap]

I can appreciate the hard work you put in to sharing your advice. For ants I use Terro liquid baits or I sprinkle down cinnamon around the ant hills that I find. They hate the cinnamon smell and vacate within a few hours after applying. The baits do the same of attracting ants and they then take it back to the nest and kills the queen. I use small terra cotta saucers upside down to place the baits then cover with plastic cups with small ant size only notches on the lip edge for access and is water and rain proof.
Keep in mind that your pup will absorb the chemicals thru there pads and people shouldn't go barefoot where you've put it down. I'm really not trying to criticize but just trying to keep everyone safe and until it was pointed out to me from my neighbor, I wouldn't have thought of that either. I just feel we need to think about what we're putting on the ground so it doesn't seep down to our ground water/aquifers. Thank you again.

[johncmitchell]

Excellent video here, esp for those of us with similar soil.
btw, for everyone regardless of lawn, garden or home invasion of ants the downfall of any asphalt, paver, concrete pavement (besides weeds) is the nature of ants to tunnel beneath and eventually undermine them. Using a perimeter defense as shown here is vital to ensuring their longevity in many ways.

[skLuke]

We live in NE Georgia with red clay/granite. Red ants thrive everywhere here. In 2021, we were in a terrible car accident. When we were pulled out of the car by Samaritans and put on the ground away from the accident that was about to catch fire, these native Georgia ants that live in the red dirt(without mounds) began biting us in our legs. The good thing (in the midst of this tragic accident) they kept us alert until the EMT could get to us. Not that it was pleasant, but we were coherent enough to communicate with our family & give vital information to EMTs before becoming unconscious. So much for red ants.

In our property out in the country, we have used fighting techniques. We will take a shovel load from one mound to another. Sometimes, we will add even a third mound, and they will fight each other, appearing to fight to the death.
In our front yard years ago, we planted Zoyzia, which was with plugs and time-consuming. But the roots are so thick, very little weeds, nor ants can get thru it. It is beautiful when it turns green in the spring & doesn't grow tall.

[kpag]

You can create a less sandy lawn for sure by spreading compost as a top dressing a couple of times a year. In a few years, you will have an inch or two or more of transformed soil and also still have a lawn. A healthy looking lawn. And very little environment for ants to thrive.

[ruciradevidasi]

very instructional, thank you, still going to be difficult here in central florida, but perfect for raised beds and growing melons.

[Cynbad]

Thank you so much for sharing all this info. I'm a Master Gardener in SW Virginia and we have property in the OBX area as well. You nailed it!

[bubbabites]

We have fire ants here in Arkansas badly. Since we quit using Chem pesticides, we've found baking soda & white vinegar works well. It's also a fun reaction to watch lol. Just sprinkle a good amount of baking soda on the mound and pour the vinegar over it. For pests in the garden we've found neem oil and diatomaceous earth to be effective weapons as well. Thanks for your videos MG!

[dianacarr]

Just FYI - try cornmeal.
We have horses and lots of ants. Because horses love to graze, putting chemicals on their pastures is not ideal. Someone told us about cornmeal. The ants love it, they eat it and when they drink water the cornmeal swells and kills them. It is super effective, non toxic, great for garden, great for fungal infections and gets rid of ants quickly and effectively.

Drawbacks ...
*Not as effective on rainy days - for obvious reasons.
* we do broadcast spreading but only in heavily infested areas - like our barn and feed areas.
* it is better as a spot treatment
* it has to be reapplied as needed. Not a once done. In and around our barn, we may do monthly or every other month. A lot depends on the weather.

We use a hand spreader.
We also keep an old large plastic chive spice container filled with cornmeal to spot treat occasionally.

It's super effective but does require reapplication as needed.

The bonus ... it's doesn't hurt the beneficial like worms etc

[satishchandrakodagally]

Wow! This is awesome information. For container gardening, Change the soil structure and/or just add a fabric to the base so they can't throw out soil to build their homes. Thanks a ton 🙂

[robpar]

Awesome video, thank you for taking the time to learn the subject matter and explain it to us. Excellent job!

[tworebelsoffgrid]

This is great information! We purchased 36 acres in SE AZ and we have exactly the type of soil you talked about in the video. Although we probably will not be able to change the structure of all the soil on our property, we can at least work on the areas close to our living area. We actually were bit several times while putting our fence up at the end of last summer and feel your pain about the flip flops...I definitely wouldn't wear those around until we get them under control!

[Chainyanker]

I use a borax solution and put it in small disposable water bottles in which I’ve cut a small opening to allow easy pouring of a tablespoon or two of the solution into the bottle. I then place them wherever I see ants and in other random places where I can easily see the bottles so I can periodically put in another tablespoon or two of the solution. I wash the bottle out if a bunch of dead ants are in them, and rebait the bottle and put it back till no more ants die in them. So far this seems to have killed off the colonies because the worker ants drink the solution then take it back to the nest and some goes to the queen which kills it and eventually every ant that consumes it dies. Many of the ants also die in the bottle. No doubt the colonies will return but by leaving the bait bottles out at random places it seems to have kept them at bay as any new ants get killed off. I keep the solution in a bottle and pour from it into the bait bottles. I like this method because it is economical, easy and effective. The solution is made by mixing the following: 0.5 cups sugar, 1.5 Tbls powdered borax, 1.5 cups warm water, 1 - 2 teaspoons of honey. Mix till completely dissolved.

[kmyase]

I turned my sandy soil into moist top soil and it definitely got rid of most ant hills.