57 All Natural Ways To Get Rid Of Ants

I’ve been searching for some all natural ways to get rid of ants for a while now. We have a lot of fire ants down here in Georgia as well as many other kinds of ants. These buggers keep showing up in our home, in the chicken pen, in the dog’s food, and in our garden!

And there are ant hills everywhere! I think ants are going to take over the world. They are the true zombie apocalypse! Isn’t that kind of more terrifying than the walking dead?

Anyway, it feels like that’s possible sometimes here. If left undisturbed their ant hills can get to 3 feet wide and over a foot tall. Something must be done to get rid of these ants!

But I really hate the thought of broadcasting poison where I could expose my children, my dog, and my chickens to nasty chemicals that could make them sick. So I’ve been looking for some all natural options for ant control that I can try.

Turns out there are tons of ideas for controlling ants that don’t involve using chemicals.

In fact, I found 57 all-natural ways to get rid of ants, so to help sort through them all, I made a big list of all the ideas I found. Leave me a comment with your results if you’ve tried any of these.

In order to really get control of an ant infestation, it really helps to understand a few things about how ants behave.

• Ants use pheromones and sensors on their antennae to talk to each other.
• Ants communicate so effectively that in a colony of ants working together is as intelligent as a human brain.
• Ants are more active during a dry spell than during periods of a lot of rain.
• A colony of ants consists of thousands to millions of worker ants and one or more queens.
• The workers are sent out in search of food and leave a scent trail of pheromones to lead other ants to good sources of food.
• The workers find food and bring food back to the queen or queens, larvae, and other ants.
• The queen does not usually leave the nest.
• The colony will not die unless you kill the queen or queens.

So what does all that mean?

Just that ants are very smart, the ants you see are only a tiny part of the whole colony, and that you have to kill the queen or queens in order to get rid of that colony.

There’s no way to get rid of all the ants on your property. And it’s really not a good idea to try to do so.

Ants have an important role in our ecosystem through their activity aerating and bringing nutrients into the soil as well as controlling populations of other insects through predation and being food for some animals themselves.

But should they get to come into my house and eat my potato plants? Nah.

Here are 57 ideas for controlling ants naturally.

DIY Ant Bait Recipes

Ants really like sugary, sweet foods as well as protein rich foods. If you set out bait with tempting foods and add in an ingredient that is toxic, then you can get poison into the ant colony and potentially kill the queen.

Tips for DIY ant baits

• Be patient! It can take 1-3 months to completely get rid of ants with homemade ant baits
• Be strategic! Place your ant bait along the trail the ants are already taking, but NOT on their mound.
• Be persistent! You will need to replace your bait every 2-3 weeks until the mound is killed.
• Be flexible! You need enough toxin to kill the ant, but not before it can deliver the toxin to the mound. So you may want to experiment with different concentrations of the toxin as well as different toxins.
• Be careful! Some of these toxins can be harmful to children and pets.

Ant toxin 1: Boric acid/Borax

When ants ingest boric acid, it acts as an abrasive agent within their gastrointestinal system and disrupts their metabolism so they die.

But boric acid is toxic to humans and pets who ingest it as well, so keep this one away from an area where your kids or pet might have access to it. In humans (especially little ones/children) and pets, boric acid can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and can be a skin and eye irritant.

Boric acid can also sterilize garden soil, so be careful when using it around your plants.

For all recipes add 1/2-1 tsp of boric acid per cup of bait. That equates to approximately 1-2% boric acid.

• Any jelly + peanut butter +  boric acid
• Honey (or corn syrup) + canned cat food (fishy) + boric acid
• Honey + butter (or vegetable shortening) + boric acid
• 10 tsp Sugar + 2 cups water + boric acid
• Applesauce + boric acid

Ant toxin 2: Instant Grits

Instant grits (or other grains) will kill ants by expanding once they’ve been ingested.

• You don’t need a recipe for this one. Just sprinkle instant grits around the mound or in their path. They’ll find the grits, eat them, and then take some back to the mound.

Ant toxin 3: Dry yeast

Once ingested, the active yeast will continue to expand until the ant dies.

• 2 parts molasses + 1 part sugar + 1 part active dry yeast

Ant toxin 4: Baking Soda

Baking soda works in the same way as yeast and grits, gut expansion leading to death.

• 1 part baking soda + 1 part powdered sugar sprinkle along ant trails
• Same as above, but add 1 tsp powdered ascorbic acid + 1/2 tsp honey and roll into small balls

The power of distraction

If you just need to get rid of ants for a little while like when you’re on a picnic for example, then try distracting them with an ant favorite.

• Place a slice of watermelon or cantaloupe or a bit of honey in an area several feet away from your picnic blanket. **Make sure you don’t place your blanket over a mound.**

DIY Ant Trap Recipes

• Leave a piece of peanut brittle in the sun. The ants love this treat, but get stuck!
• Leave some tape sticky side up in their path to catch them.
• Mix 1 tsp dish soap and 1 tsp cooking oil in 4 cups of water and leave in their path. They go in and can’t get out.

How to Kill ant hills

To treat an ant mound, choose a warm sunny day between noon and 2 pm. This is the time the queen is said to be most active.

Don’t step on or disturb the mound before you treat it as the workers will hide and protect the queen if they have any warning of danger.

If it doesn’t work on the first try, repeat daily until they’re all dead.

• Mix 1/4 cup liquid hand soap with 1 gal of cool tap water. Pour 1-2 cups on the hill and repeat after an hour to make sure it penetrates deeply into the mound. Will kill grass and plants.
• Saturate the mound with vinegar. Will kill grass and plants.
• Pour boiling water onto the mound
• Dump several liters of Coke or soda water onto the mound
• 1 gallon of orange juice in 2 gallons of water plus 2 tablespoons of dish soap
• 1 cup of dish soap + 1 cup lime + 4 gallons of water
• Use a meat baster to blast the mound with talc powder. Stab and squeeze.

DIY Ant Repellents

With ants, you really have to set your boundaries or they will invade and take what they like whenever they like.

There are several recipes for ant repellents that can be used in the garden, home, or animal pens. Some are sprays and some are powders.

With powders, you can literally draw a line in the soil or at entries to your home to stop ants from entering. Make sure the line is 1-3 inches wide and reapply every week or after a rain.

For sprays, mist the boundary you want to set and allow it to dry. Reapply weekly or after a rain (if outside).

Ant repellants that are also Great for the garden:

• Mix equal parts of dried peppermint + rock dust + seaweed powder + alfalfa meal + cayenne pepper. Sprinkle around plants to deter ants. Reapply after rain.
• Diatomaceous earth. Sprinkle on or around your plants. Ants must walk through 3 inches of DE to be affected. Also treats other insects in the garden like aphids.
• Biochar (or powdered charcoal) will repel the ants and is great for the garden. Just don’t use charcoal from your grill.
• Bone meal is an excellent fertilizer for your garden, and ants hate the smell.
• Apply Vaseline, lard, or other slippery substance around the stem of infected plants
• Garden lime: ants hate lime, but don’t over do this in your garden. Always check the pH of your soil before adding lime.
• Cinnamon: Ants hate cinnamon. Sprinkle it around your plants to deter them. You can also do this in your home, but that just sounds messy to me.
• Cayenne pepper: Same as cinnamon
• Manure tea: horse manure plus hot water. **use only aged or composted manure** **don’t use this inside your home**
• Used coffee grounds: ants hate coffee! They won’t cross a line of slightly moist coffee grounds. Coffee is a great soil conditioner.
• Soak orange and lemon peels in hot water overnight. The next day, remove the peels and pour the water around your plants.
• Toss orange and lemon peels into your garden.

Prevent ants At doorways and windows:

• Garden lime: sprinkle in a line to form a barrier or broadcast on your lawn to deter mounds
• Mix 1 tsp table salt + 1/2 tsp white pepper in 1 qt water. Spray wherever you see ants.
• Peppermint spray: make a solution of peppermint soap and water to spray wherever you see ants
• Essential oils spray: Recipes range from 10-20 drops of citrus, peppermint, clove, tea tree, and/or pine oil per cup of water. Use whichever ones you have. Adjust the spray as needed for efficacy.
• 50:50 vinegar and water spray

If you see ants in your house, reach for these.

If you’ve got ants marching inside your house, use ammonia, Citra solv, or vinegar to clean the areas where they are moving around. This will get rid of ants you see and the scent trail they leave for fellow ants.

Try to identify where they’re coming in and grab one of the following items ants hate to prevent them from coming back.

• Cloves
• Bay leaves
• Cucumber peels
• Garlic cloves
• Dried or fresh mint leaves
• Turmeric
• Baby powder/talc powder
• Cayenne pepper
• Cinnamon
• Citrus oil soaked string
• Lemon or orange peels
• A sprig of lavender flowers or culinary lavender
• Tea tree, clove, or pine oil: soak a q-tip and place a dab anywhere you see them entering the home.

All-natural lethal ant spray recipes

• Almost any household cleaner will kill ants including those that contain bleach and ammonia.
• Soak the stems of a soybean plant in water for 24 hours. Then use the water to spray anywhere you see ants (or aphids).
• 1 drop of pure pine oil into 1 qt water. The pine oil is toxic to ants but smells great to us.
• 1 cigarette into a quart of water let sit overnight. The nicotine will kill the ants.
• Citra solve (d-limonene) concentrated cleanser

Grow these plants that ants hate.

Whether you use them as companion plants in the garden, in a landscape border, or among the foundation plants around your home, utilizing these plants that ants hate can help with your ant problem.

• Peppermint: plant in containers only to prevent it from overtaking your garden.
• Tansy: Can be invasive.
• Sweet bay tree: a large tree that can be pruned into a bush.
• Lavender: loves sun and well-draining soil.
• Garlic: An excellent companion plant for tomatoes.
• Sweet fern: A shrub, native to North America with medicinal properties.

 

Have you tried any of these methods to get rid of ants?

Let us know which methods worked for you and which didn’t in the comments below.