Kitchen Garden Forum

I've just found an ants nest inside a sealed Westland growbag! I've sprinkled the compost with ant powder, but will this affect the new tomato plants when they're installed? I'd like to plant in the next few days, or should I wait longer? Or not at all.
Thanks for guidance.

Following my first mail I now find that the main nest is under the bag, in the soil. so they must have found their way in somehow. Would still like to know whether the ant dust is toxic to plants?

As far as I am aware Nippon ant powder will not harm plants.

Question in my mind is do you really need to get rid of the ants, they are beneficial as they eat sap sucking insects such as white fly.
Ants should not harm your tomato plants

I found the wormery full of ants yesterday

Pa Snip
Last year I had two tomato plants curl up and die for no apparent reason and when I excavated them there was an ants nest at the roots.

JohnN wrote:Pa Snip
Last year I had two tomato plants curl up and die for no apparent reason and when I excavated them there was an ants nest at the roots.

Surprising, you would have thought that constant watering would have made them move on

That was my thought - dryness rather than ants.

Myself and Old Codger have both had problems with ants and the sunny edges of the allotments. Where there was a nest next to a root of potatoes, all the potatoes on that root had gone scabby. When we looked closely you could see where they had been nibbling them. Not sure if they were after the moisture, or where the potatoes were swelling, they were pushing into the ant nest!

So, would ants attack the roots of a plant after moisture?

Not keen on my ants! I've got the stinging, nasty ants on the allotments. Never considered looking at what damage they may have caused - too busy licking my wounds and taking notes on what spots to avoid!

Like Pa Snip, I wouldn,t have thought the anti ant powder would harm your tomato roots. If in doubt you can always place one of these RAID bait discs nearby, or alternatively put some of the gel bait on a few stones nearby. This should have the same effect and get rid of them pretty quickly.

Ants do of course farm greenfly, which certainly isn't beneficial to anything but the ants.

I use the ant killer that looks like sugar. I've used some where they had started getting into the conservatory. They eat it and take it back to the nest to feed their babies so it gets rid of them quite effectively.