Kitchen Garden Forum

Earlier in the year I put brand new compost in my tomato bed in the greenhouse and recently bought a single plant to test it out before the full planting. After a couple of weeks it began to go yellow so I decided to excavate it - and found an ants nest in the roots! I cleared the nest out and replanted with ant killer powder (containing Permethrin) at the base. My questions: Will this powder harm the plant, if not I'll put it in with the soil when I plant the rest. If it's harmful, what's the best prevention for ants?
Thanks all, John N

Hello John
I have a light soil so I get a lot of trouble with ants. I use ant powder based on permethrin quite a lot and have found it very effective. Its also quite good at shifting the occasional cluster of greenfly - puff it directly onto the leaves. I've never ever noticed any harm to plants. This stuff is also in household aerosol fly and wasp killer so I guess that it is pretty harmless to other plants and animals.
Hope this helps
John

Hi John,
I recently tried using a homemade rhubarb spray in an effort to control bean weevil - it didn't work- but it killed red ants on contact. Have not used it since, too worried that it might harm friendly things. I've got lots of ants on my plot but they don't seem to do much harm except to me - I once had occasion to remove my trousers in a great hurry due to the pain inflicted - don't think anyone saw me

I was doing a search for slug nematodes a couple of days ago and found that you can get nematodes for ants also.

It seems they work not by killing the ants by causing the ants to move as they do not like living in the same area as the nematodes. So whether it works or not I don't know.