[vaptek]

Now that the weather's getting nice, I want to let my young daughter play outside. Unfortunately, we've always had a ton of ants in our yard and I've never really done anything about them other than step over or around the mounds. I obviously don't want to blanket the yard in ant poison, which is why I've never dealt with them, but I do want her to be able to go out in our yard. I also don't want my crawling baby playing in ant hills.

Any suggestions?

I've been searching around and have heard boiling water or tea in the mounds, but does that work? I've also heard peppermint oil, but I can't imagine you'd put that in a mound. Er, peppermint tea, perhaps?

Clearly, I need some help.

 

[widdlelou]

Boiling water does work for getting big mounds away but its not a long term solution... really I haven't found long term solutions. We dont' treat our yard and everyone else around me does so I get eveyrones ants I think. We have a terrible problem with them. pouring gasoline on the mound works too, there are some things from Ortho I think... not quite sure but they are these stake things that you puti n the ant pile and they do work.. they are super immediate but they do work and then you aren't putting poison all over your yard. I tried and tried to do just boiling water and ect but we had to pull out the big guns after my daughter got into a pile and was bit from her toes to her upper theighs. It was a mess!! We finally did a combo of the stakes and then some that we sprinkled the yard with poison that sterilizes the queen because I thinkwith just hte wa ter some would die but the queen still somehow survived and so just relocated. Its horrible. I hate ht poison and we have to keep the kids out of the grass for a cuople days and the kind that sterilizes the queen takes a couple weeks to really work.

 

[Emilie]

diatemaceous earth works for insect control- and it is organic.
St. Gabriels has a product as does natural guard. It should run you under 15 dollars for a 4 lb bag.

 

[Emilie]

The product by st gabriels is called insect dust. it is very non toxic.... they are a great company.