Ants in my plants help!

[blackheartsgirl]

Just sorting out my little vegetable patch, its
been under tarp since last September and I was going to dig it all over today in the hope of putting some spring onions in there or some runners and I find the whole earth all crawling with ants. It look like there’s a couple of large nests there. My garden is a bit troubled with ants, always had been but it seems worse this year, I found another one in a young potted plum tree I have and yet another one in a pot of flowers. Help!

This is a tricky one as they like to eat white and black fly larvae, which you don't want on your plants, so their presence to a certain extent is actually desireable.

There’s loads of them though I seem to have nests everywhere 😭

I mostly leave them be (even though they are clearly farming aphids on my roses 🤦🏻‍♀️). I did have to kill some off a couple of years ago when they got so bad there were three nests in our small patch of grass and they were all over the house. I used Ant Stop! Bait stations. I waited for a spell of dry days and put two between the nests, a couple either side of the garden by the most infested plants and one by the kitchen door. They were gone from the house in a couple of days, it was a little over a week for them to be gone from the garden.

My entire garden is covered in ants but in themselves they aren’t (afaik) harmful. Just watch for aphid farming and kill those aphids when you notice it.