If you are growing or plan to grow a vegetable garden, you know that a lot of work and money can go into this. If you want to truly benefit from your veggies, you need to keep out unwanted pests and allow your crops to grow properly. Whether you have a large garden or a simple vegetable patch by your home, doing your best to protect it is key.

Are ants harmful to vegetable gardens? Depending on the kind of ants present, a vegetable garden can experience a mix of good and bad effects:

Control of some pests

Increase in some pests
Improved pollination
A healthy ecosystem

Property damage

A real mix, right? The deciding factor of whether ants are good and bad is the type of ant: small black ants pose little risk, while larger fire ants or carpenter ants can be very harmful. We will further discuss the pros and cons of ants in the vegetable garden and what you can do about these issues.

Risk Level to the Garden Depends on Ant Type

As mentioned, the overall negatives of ants in a garden are fairly low, and the type of ant determines your course of action. You probably are not reading this if you are not suffering from an ant issue, but you may not know exactly what type of ants you are seeing. Identifying the ant issue is the first step to deciding if you want to treat your garden or simply let them go.

Common types of ants that you will find in most gardens are:

Garden Ants – These are the typical little black or red ants that you see outside. They can go by several names, but most know them as garden ants, and they are usually not an issue. In fact, these are the most beneficial ants to a vegetable garden and can help your plants grow.

The only issue you may have with these smaller garden ants is if the colony becomes too large. They tend to avoid plants but can begin eating them if the numbers get too high. If you notice an increase in garden ants, you may want to find a solution for dealing with them before a full out infestation starts.

Carpenter Ants – Carpenter ants can pose a big problem for your vegetable garden and even the structures around it. These ants tunnel and nest in wooden structures and can cause damage to your house, trellises, or any other wooden constructions. If you see a carpenter ant near your garden, you need to begin ridding the area of them immediately.

Fire Ants – This specific species of carpenter ant can be extremely harmful to your veggie garden. These are usually larger, red ants that will construct large mounds near your garden housing as many as a million ants. While they can pose similar risks as carpenter ants, they also have a strong bite that you want to avoid at all costs.

Benefits of Ants in Your Garden

As mentioned, smaller garden ants can actually provide some benefits to your garden and can be good to keep around. In fact, if they are not infesting the area, you should simply leave them alone to provide the benefits that they are known for. The many pros of ants in your garden are:

They Provide Natural Pest Control – Ants can control pests by eating their eggs and young. They can actually disturb other pests during feeding and help rid the garden of them. They are so good at taking care of garden pests that some gardeners even introduce ants as part of their integrated pest management strategy. The method of using ants to control pests actually dates back to 300 A.D.
Ants Improve Pollination Rates for Your Plants – Though it may be unintentional, they are excellent at pollinating plants. In recent years, the number of pollinator populations has decreased, which has caused many gardeners to struggle with achieving consistency in the harvest of fruiting crops. However, ants can assist with pollinating your plants as they roam from plant to plant.
They Support a Healthy Ecosystem – Ants aerate the soil by digging tunnels that can carry water, oxygen, and nutrients to the plant roots. They speed up the decomposition of organic material like leaves and dead insects, which fertilizes the plants. Even tower gardens that do not use soil can benefit from ants and serve as lunch for larger organisms and animals.

Negatives of Ants in Your Garden

As mentioned, certain ant species can pose a bigger risk than others in your garden and should be dealt with accordingly. Of course, learning more about these risks can help you understand how to deal with them and why it is so important. Some common issues that arise with certain ant species or even a garden ant infestation include:

Ants Can Actually Increase Pest Populations – We will further discuss aphids and why you should avoid them, but ants can actually bring in these pests and increase their population in your garden. Ants are attracted to sticky sweet things, which aphids produce in the form of their “honeydew,” which means ants are attracted to them. At times, ants will actually carry aphids into your garden, increasing their presence and damage.
Ants Can Cause Property Damage – As mentioned, certain ant species like carpenter ants can cause damage to your wooden structures around the garden area. Carpenter ants build their homes in wood and are not particularly picky about the type of wood that they use for this. Putting your home’s structure or the structures around your garden at risk.

Some Ants Can Cause Pain – Fire ants are known for their sting, hence the name fire ants, which is extremely painful and can easily happen if you have an abundance of the ants in your garden. While carpenter ants are usually discussed due to their property damage capabilities, they can actually bite you as well, something you do not want. In fact, when they bite, they then spray formic acid into the bite, which causes a burning sensation.

The Major Problem with Aphids in the Garden

As mentioned, ants can be attracted to aphids, and this can pose a big problem for your veggie garden. If you are unsure of what aphids are or why they should not be in your garden, we will further discuss them. The key problem with aphids is that they can quickly and fairly efficiently eat your garden, ruining your hard work.

To check for aphids, you want to check your plants for these tiny bugs, which can be very hard to see with the naked eye. Many are green, but they can range in color depending on the species that is in your garden. If you begin to see damage to your plants, you need to take action quickly, first attacking the aphids and next lowering the ant population that might be bringing them into your garden.

Natural Remedies to Aphid Infestation

If you are seeing an immense level of damage to your plants, you may want to seek alternative ways than those we will discuss or even speak to a professional who can handle the issue for you.

However, if you would like to seek more natural alternatives to pesticides, there are several natural ways that you can remove or lower the number of aphids in your plants. Some natural solutions you can use to treat aphids are:

Create a Soap Spray

Step 1: Combine around a tablespoon of liquid soap and a gallon of water into a spray bottle or sprayer.

Step 2: Spray both sides of plant leaves to help rid the plant of aphids and other common insects like spider mites and whiteflies.

Step 3: Make sure to reapply the spray often and especially after a rain.

Create a Garlic Spray

Step 1: In a blender, combine one whole garlic bulb and two cups of water. Blending on high until the garlic is finely pureed.

Step 2: Put the garlic and water mixture into a storage container and allow it to sit for around a day.

Step 3: Strain out the pulp of the garlic and then mix the remaining water mixture with one gallon of water in a sprayer.

Step 4: Spray both the top and bottom of the plant leaves thoroughly, making sure to reapply weekly or after rains.

Add Peppers into Your Garlic Spray
To help get rid of aphids and a slew of other pests like cabbage worms, caterpillars, hornworms, flea beetles, and more, you can create a slightly more advanced spray.

Step 1: Start by blending six cloves of garlic, one tablespoon dried hot peppers, one minced onion, one teaspoon liquid soap, and a gallon of hot water.

Step 2: After blending the ingredients, allow them to sit for one to two days. You will then strain out any pulp from the ingredients and add the liquid to a spray bottle.

Step 3: Apply to the leaves of the plants and reapply when there has been a rain or after a few days.

Step 4: You can also apply ground cayenne or hot red peppers to the leaves directly once they are wet from the spray. This can help further repel any pests that may be interested in eating the plants.

Naturally Controlling Ants in Your Garden

While most simple garden ants are not an issue, if you see other types of ants or you want to rid the ants from your garden entirely, you have a couple of options. You can always contact a pest control service that can come out and spray your yard or garden area. However, another option is that you can try natural remedies similar to those mentioned above for the aphids.

Use Organic Ant Killers

There are several ways you can use organic materials to create a basic ant control. There are several organic means of getting rid of ants if you need to do so. These methods will kill the ants, so if this is not your goal, you will want to continue reading for ways to deter the ants instead.

Create a Sugar and Borax Mixture:

Step 1: Mix one cup of sugar and one cup of borax in a cup.

Step 2: Lightly sprinkle the sugar mixture around the hills where the ants will then eat the sugar mixed with undetectable borax.

Step 3: Wait for the ants to carry this borax mixed sugar into their ant colony. Borax is highly poisonous to ants and can wipe out the entire colony.

If you want to do a similar method that is more natural and can help rid your garden of ants, you can simply sprinkle artificial sweeteners around the anthill. For example, use Equal or Nutra Sweet around the hill and similarly, the ants will carry it into the hill. These sweeteners are actually quite poisonous to the ants, but they will eat them like regular sugar, killing them.

Try Boiling Water

Another option, though a little more gruesome, is to kill the ants using boiling water. Here are the simple steps:

Step 1: Boil a large pot of water, ensuring you have enough water to completely cover the anthill.

Step 2: Dig up the anthill to expose as many ants as possible.

Step 3: Working quickly, you will want to pour the boiling water over the top of the anthill.

Step 4: The water will kill the ants that it initially touches, but you may need to make several applications to really wipe out an infestation.

Use Diatomaceous Earth

If you are unfamiliar with diatomaceous earth, it is made from the fossilized hard-shelled algae called diatoms. This is ground into a fine powder and then sold in large bags at a variety of retailers. You can find this at most larger retailers, and it is a natural way of killing ants. To use diatomaceous earth, you will need to:

Step 1: Sprinkle the diatomaceous earth around your vegetable garden and near the anthills.

Step 2: Wait for the ants to crawl around the substance, and it will stick to them.

Step 3: Over time, the ants will be dehydrated, and you will see a decrease in them. To fully wipe out the ants, you need to ensure the diatomaceous earth stays dry and can stick to the ants.

Try Dry Grits

A final method for killing the ants naturally is to use dry grits. You can simply sprinkle the grits around your veggie garden or plants for the ants to eat. They will eat the grits, and it will swell within their bodies, causing them to be unable to digest food.

Repel Ants Naturally from Your Garden

If you do not have an abundance of fire ants or carpenter ants, then you may not want to kill them entirely. Instead, you may be more interested in repelling the ants from the garden area and keeping your plants safe.

This can easily be done and many of these methods can be done from the beginning of planting, lowering the risk of infestation from the start.

Create a Barrier for Ants

There are many ways that you can create a barrier around your plants and stop ants from entering the area. This will not kill the ants but simply create a wall that they do not or will not cross. Some common ways to do this are:

Crush up chalk and sprinkle a chalk line around the plants or around the perimeter of the garden. Ants will not cross the chalk lines. You need to reapply this after a rain or as needed.
You can also use cinnamon, cayenne pepper, curry powder, or baby powder if you do not have chalk readily available to crush. These materials also deter ants and they tend to avoid crossing the substance.

Make an Herb-Based Repellent Spray

If your gardening expertise goes beyond vegetable gardens and you have a selection of herbs as well, you can benefit from this greatly.

Take enough cuttings from a catmint, peppermint, or sage plant to fill an eight-ounce cup.
Add these clippings to one quart of boiling water and then remove the pot from the heat.
Let the mixture cool completely and strain out any pieces of the plants.

Pour the liquid into a spray bottle along with a teaspoon of liquid dish soap or coconut oil
Ensure the ingredients are mixed well and then spray it onto the plants in your garden, reapplying monthly or after rain.

Plan ahead: You can actually plant some of these deterring herbs around your garden for a similar effect. You can add catnip, pennyroyal, sage, peppermint, or spearmint plants around your garden. Ants naturally do not like these plants and they tend to avoid entering these areas.

Don’t Trash Your Cucumber Peelings

Another great way to deter ants is through cucumber peelings. These are something you probably naturally have around your home or even trash regularly. Next time you have a meal using cucumbers, save those peelings and sprinkle them around your garden.

Are Ants Harmful to a Vegetable Garden? The Pros and Cons