What to do with ants in cucumber beds in a greenhouse

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Yakov Pavlovich

Professor, Head of the Department of Vegetable Growing

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Ants willingly settle in greenhouse beds. And fighting a colony of these insects is an extremely difficult task. Ants reproduce quickly; the phase between the laying of eggs and the formation of pupae takes only a month, so during one growing season, several ant generations take root in the greenhouse. There are different ways to quickly get rid of ants in a greenhouse with cucumbers: mechanical, chemical, folk.

Lifestyle and way of life of ants

Insects live in colonies, they have a caste system: queen, worker ants, soldiers. The queen lays the eggs. The life cycle of an ant is from eggs to larvae, which pupate and mature. The ants you see around the nest entrance are foragers—they collect food and bring it back to the colony. Foragers make up about 10% of the population of the entire colony.

Ant nests are extremely strong and durable and can withstand rain and floods. When a nest is seriously attacked, worker ants will move the eggs to a new location to avoid the colony being completely destroyed.

Basic ways to get rid of invasion

The gardener's task is to reduce the ant colony. It is advisable to combine different methods of pest control, this way you will be able to achieve a positive result faster. Moreover, the fight must be waged against aphids, and not just against the “shepherds”

Mechanical

Fighting with mechanical methods involves using a shovel or shovel. These devices turn over layers of earth, destroy ant nests, and expose holes with stored eggs and pupae. The soil lump with the nest is raked with a shovel, placed in a bucket, filled with water, and taken out of the greenhouse. You need to work with a shovel carefully so as not to injure the delicate roots of the cucumber located in the upper soil layer.

The benefits and harms of ants in borage

Just as a weed is a pest when it grows in the wrong place, insects in the wrong place are also pests. But first, the good news: ants are predators and prey at the same time: they absorb the eggs of many parasitic insects and themselves serve as food for lizards, birds and other beneficial inhabitants of the garden microcosm. Their tunnels aerate the soil and allow water and nutrients to flow directly to the planting root system. They also distribute seeds in the soil, storing them in their tunnels.

The bad news is that ants raise and protect harmful honey-sucking organisms that cause a lot of damage. If you control the ant populations in your garden, you will make progress in eradicating scale, mealybug, aphid and whitefly populations.

Information!

Ants become garden pests when they can eat seedlings and raise colonies of aphids and mealybugs. Aphids secrete a sweet substance (honeydew), which contains a lot of glucose to feed the colony. Ants process these insects to ensure their own livelihoods.

Benefits from the presence of industrious insects:

1. Loosening the soil. When building their anthills, they loosen the top layer of soil. This is very beneficial for plant roots, which receive additional air and are saturated with oxygen.
2. Soil enrichment. Ant waste is rich in useful microelements such as potassium and nitrogen.
3. Destruction of pests. Ants are garden nurses; they clean plants from spider mites, whiteflies, aphids, larvae and caterpillars.

Negative aspects of ant activity in a cucumber bed:

1. They eat cucumber seeds and eat seedlings, as a result of which they die.
2. Infestation of honey aphids. To feed ants, they need glucose; for this they keep a “pet” - aphids, from which they “pump out” this substance. Plants serve as pasture for aphids, from which they suck out the vital juices.
3. Pain from ant bites. An ant can quietly climb onto a person and give a painful bite. His acid, which he injects into the wound, can cause a serious allergic reaction.

If you are wondering how to get rid of ants in cucumbers, choose a reliable method. A few ants in the wrong place are not a serious problem, although they disturb the gardener, but they can be scared away, they will go look for another location and will not damage the cucumber bed. Large ant nests are where the real problem lies. Ant colonies can eat young plants and breed insect pests, so such colonies must be eliminated before they take full ownership of the garden.

If ants appear in cucumbers, it is necessary to study all modern and folk remedies to combat them in the beds and in the greenhouse. Some home remedies may seem like they work (especially in the short term), but they are often ineffective. A pest control specialist can tell you what to do if there are ants in a greenhouse with cucumbers, but such a person is not always available. Fortunately, working methods for dealing with uninvited guests have long been developed.

Prevention

You may be interested in: How to treat trees and shrubs in the fall against pests and diseases. How to fight white aphids on indoor plants. How to treat the soil in a greenhouse in the fall against diseases and pests.

The listed methods are effective in fighting ants, but not all will completely destroy the insects. One colony of ants includes 10 thousand individuals, and the same number of eggs and larvae hatch. It will not be possible to neutralize absolutely everyone. There are ways of prevention:

1. Throw out all garbage from the greenhouse in a timely manner. Insects love to live under pieces of old boards and roofing felt. Therefore, it is necessary to destroy possible places for their settlement;
2. Dig up the area 2 times a season. After autumn harvest and before spring planting. Dig to great depth, carefully breaking up all clods.

Simple methods of prevention will help protect the harvest and prevent ants from infesting. It is important to constantly keep your area clean, get rid of excess, and timely weed and loosen the ridges. Ants will not settle where the human hand is constantly working. If, after all, they have settled on a ridge or in borage, you can begin to use one of the control methods. It is not necessary to immediately grab chemicals; it is better to try folk and mechanical remedies.

Folk remedies

To remove ants from a cucumber bed or greenhouse, you need to find their habitats. These insects do not like dark, damp areas; they dig tunnels in sunny areas. When the anthill is found, it should be carefully lifted onto a shovel and transferred to a bucket with a lid along with the queen and eggs, that is, completely removed from the cucumber bed. Take the bucket away from the site and shake it out. The ants will quickly restore their home.

Other good methods:

• watering the anthill with kerosene and a decoction of tomato tops;
• sprinkling with quicklime, ash, soda ash;
• Place a dark cloth in a bucket, pour sugar on top, place the container next to the anthill. Soon the queen and her family will move into the bucket; you can simply take it away from the garden;
• Another way to remove ants from a greenhouse with cucumbers: pour 2 cups of a mixture of equal amounts of vinegar, vegetable oil, shampoo into a 10-liter bucket of water, stir. Fill the anthill and cover with dark film. Within a week, the occupiers will leave the greenhouse;
• before planting seeds in the soil or seedlings, water the bed with a solution of soda and linseed oil;
• bait soaked in borax or yeast. The components are mixed with any sweet substance (honey, jam, molasses), as well as with a boiled egg or minced meat. It is known that ants are omnivorous insects, and they happily take poisoned baits.

Important!

Some gardeners treat cucumber seedlings with a soda suspension, but you should be careful, as soda can burn young plants.

Ants do not like well-kept gardens, so you should loosen the soil as often as possible and dig up in spring and autumn. If the ant infestation is large and the garden's survival is at risk, killing the ants may be necessary. Keep in mind that in addition to them, beneficial insects can also be destroyed, as well as neighboring plants damaged or destroyed. Use pesticides with caution.

Diatomaceous earth (diatomaceous earth)

It is a sedimentary rock that consists of diatoms. It is an ant repellent and killer. Diatomaceous earth is crushed fossils of sea life. The fragments of diatomaceous earth are finely cut and laid out along ant paths. Soft-bodied insects such as ants, slugs and cockroaches are constantly cut when they crawl on them. It can be compared to how a person constantly walks on broken glass. Cuts cause dehydration and death of insects. Place diatomaceous earth along ant trails and around anthill entrances.

Boiling water

Boiling water will scald and kill the ants. You need to pour boiling water directly into the entrance to the anthill. The nests may be deep and they are built to protect the queen from rain or flooding, so several applications of boiling water may be required. You need to fill the nest with three liters every day for a week.

Monitor activity around the anthill to determine the effectiveness of your actions. The best time to treat ant nests with boiling water is mid-morning, when the insects are most active. You must kill the queen to destroy the nest.

Important!

Keep in mind that boiling water will damage and may kill beneficial insects and nearby plants.

Boric acid

A natural compound used as a repellent and pesticide. Boric acid is poisonous if ingested in large quantities; it is a poison for the stomach. Keep in mind that it can harm and even kill your pet (the degree of harm depends on the amount of poison and the size of the animal).

Follow the rules for handling acid:

• Keep out of the reach of children and pets:
• use baits (ant traps) that children and animals cannot open;
• Wash your hands and gloves after working with boric acid.

Make boric acid ant bait by dissolving in 2 cups (500 ml) water:

• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) powdered boric acid;
• 10 teaspoons (50 ml) sugar.

Soak cotton balls in this mixture and place them in a bait container next to the anthill or along the ant trail. The worker ants will climb inside, take the edible bait, and take it back to the queen's nest as food. Boric acid creates dehydration in the ant's stomach. He has no immunity to it.

If you find a lot of dead ants near the bait, the mixture may be too strong. In fact, it must work slowly so that the worker ants have time to take the bait to the nest, where other members of the colony will feed on it. Instead of sugar, you can mix boric acid with peanut butter. To determine if the bait is attracting ants, place sticky tapes around the nest or ant trail area to monitor the process. If several ants hit the traps, the bait worked.

Important!

Keep boric acid away from children and pets. Avoid contact with eyes or nose and wash hands and gloves after use.

Combined options for destroying an anthill

These include mechanical methods in half with a chemical analogue. You can put a dark cloth with sugar sprinkled on it or soaked in plenty of molasses in a bucket and place it near the ant’s nest. Soon the queen and her family will move into this container, and after that it will be possible to safely take her outside the site.

To protect cucumbers from ants, you can spray them with mustard solution, which is infused for three days. Also, these insects can be repelled by simply mustard powder scattered in their path.

There is another effective way to remove ants from a greenhouse with cucumbers: take 2 cups of vinegar, vegetable oil and shampoo for 10 liters of water, stir well and pour into the ant nest, and then cover with dark oilcloth. Within a week, the “undesirable” neighbors will leave the greenhouse.

Industrial chemicals

If all options have been tried, and the ants in the greenhouse with cucumbers continue to wreck, only radical measures remain. Pesticides are used to make various baits that will help get rid of ants in the cucumber bed. More often, drugs are used whose main component is the chemical compound diazinon. It causes nervous system damage, paralysis and death. Such drugs include Grom-2, Muratsid, Anteater.

Another effective damaging component of chemicals is chlorine pyrifos. It enters the ant's body through the respiratory system and also paralyzes the nervous system. The drug remains in the soil for up to 4 months, and is effective against ants for 2 months. Chlor-pyrifos is part of the Absolut and Delicia products.

Use boric acid

Purchase special options. Study the instructions to know all the features of use, since there are many products and each has its own differences.

Place them in the path of insects. Observe the action, if necessary, purchase and set fresh traps

Purchase a special chemical . Study the instructions and prepare the solution according to the manufacturer's recommendations.

Excavate the anthill down to the pupae . Fill the hole with solution and then cover it with soil. Usually one treatment is enough to kill insects. You can spray the soil for effectiveness, but it is not advisable to spray it on plants.

Method 1 . Grind the yolks of three eggs. Add 5 g of boric acid to the mixture and mix the mixture well. Roll small balls and place them wherever there are ants.

Method 2 . Dissolve a teaspoon of boric acid in 200 ml of hot water. When the liquid has cooled, add 20 g. honey and 50 gr. Sahara. Mix well, pour the syrup into the lids and place in places where insects accumulate

Dissolve 400 g in a bucket of water. soap _ It’s better to grate it on a coarse grater in advance to simplify and speed up the process.

Add 2 tbsp. l. phenol and 10 tbsp. l. kerosene _ Before treating the soil, loosen and weed. Water all surfaces thoroughly

Repelling ants

If these hard-working insects are not a serious problem in the garden, you can try to repel them.

Strong aromas

Ants don't like strong odors. To get rid of ants in cucumbers, grow plants with strong natural aromas or essential oils in a greenhouse: mint, garlic, rhubarb, tansy. The ants will leave. They are afraid of the smell of plants and seasonings: cinnamon, garlic, onion, mustard, wormwood, bay leaf, mint and elderberry. You can plant mustard and garlic next to the cucumbers, and then the ants will bypass this area. To protect the sown cucumber seeds from ants, add black pepper to the holes with the seeds, preferably together with red hot pepper.

Reviews from gardeners

Svetlana, Ufa. Review of Anteater

The resulting solution was poured generously onto the piles of ants, then with a shovel she stirred up the piles and poured more inside. They immediately began to run headlong.

Source: otzovik.com

Elena, Lyubertsy

For more than 25 years I have been using a simple method - unrefined sunflower oil. It was just necessary to lubricate the paths on which they run. Now, if there are infestations in the greenhouse, then I water their habitat around with a thin stream. If possible, then of course I dig a nest.

Source: forum.littleone.ru

How to deal with ants in a greenhouse mechanically?

If ants appear in a greenhouse, you need to find their nest. Next, you can remove ants from the garden bed by following the instructions for implementing the following mechanical influence on them:

To prevent ants from destroying cucumber seedlings, the soil around their home must be watered with a decoction made from tomato leaves, sprinkled with soda ash, millet or ash.

If a summer resident wants to eliminate the risk of planted crops being damaged by ants, he needs to dig a trench around the greenhouse. Then the recess is covered with cellophane, reinforced with stones and filled with water. Such a barrier protects the greenhouse from insect attacks.

Characteristics of the variety

Cucumber “Ant F1” belongs to ultra-early ripening hybrids and forms a harvest in an average of 37-38 days after germination. Forms indeterminate, medium-climbing plants with weak branching, female type of flowering. The number of ovaries in the nodes is three or more. The leaves are medium in size, green in color, slightly wrinkled with slight wavy edges.

This hybrid is parthenocarpic. The length of commercial greens is 8-11 cm, weight - about 100-110 g. The fruits are large-tubercular, oval-cylindrical in shape, with crispy and juicy pulp without bitterness or voids.

What types of ants are there in a summer cottage?

There are several varieties of ants - red and black forest ants, red and black garden ants, and winged ones. Each type has its own characteristics.

Black ants

Forest black species of insects are the most harmful. They usually live in the forest, build their houses anywhere and breed aphids. If this species appears in the garden, then the aphid will infect all the plants. The black variety reproduces quickly, so even after applying effective insecticides, the colony will be restored after some time. It is impossible to destroy the uterus, because it is hidden deep underground and does not come to the surface.

Red ants

Red ants often live in the forest. They make nests in the form of mounds rising above the ground. This variety is also called pharaonic. These are real pests in a summer cottage, because they spoil almost all plants. The red species parasitizes the root system of plants, causing their death. It is very difficult to get rid of them because the population recovers quickly.

Common garden ants

Eliminating small garden insects is easy. They do not build deep nests, do not damage plant roots, and do not breed aphids. Any of the above remedies will be effective in the fight against them.

Winged ants

During the mating season, even ordinary individuals develop wings. These are ordinary worker ants. After mating with a female, the wings disappear. Moreover, during mating, males transfer germ cells, which the female uses throughout her life to produce eggs. Females leave their native anthill forever and create their own nests, in which they become queens. Their wings last their entire lives.

Advantages of the variety

Cucumber “Ant F1” is suitable for both fresh consumption and canning. With proper agricultural technology, the yield of marketable fruits is 10-12 kg/m². Other advantages of the variety include the following:

• self-pollinating;
• female type of flowering
• high yield, practically independent of weather factors;
• short-fruited and large-tuberous green plants;
• ultra-early harvest formation;
• unpretentiousness;
• excellent taste;
• marketable appearance and suitability for sale;
• resistance to PTO, cladosporiosis, powdery and downy mildew.

Description of the ant

Ants are social insects. They live in families consisting of 2 castes - sexual individuals (females and males) and working individuals, which are underdeveloped and sterile females. Sex castes are winged; worker ants do not have wings.

The size of insects depends on the species and caste and reaches 0.1–5 cm in length. In some species, females are larger than worker ants, while in others they are practically the same in size.

The insect's body is protected from damage by a chitinous shell and consists of 3 parts: head, chest and abdomen. Body color can be black, yellow, red, brown with various shades.

There are 3 simple eyes on the top of the head. Ants' vision is not very good, although their eyes consist of many lenses and are excellent at detecting movement.

The sense of smell is of great importance for insects. They distinguish their relatives by smell and search for food. The antennae on their heads help them with this. They are not only an organ of smell, but also pick up vibrations and transmit signals of help and danger.

Special insect glands produce formic acid to protect against enemies. Ants move on 6 legs with claws. This allows them to climb up.