Ant hills in Garden... are they a bad thing?

[splat42069]

Are these a bad thing? Its been 2 growing seasons since I'v been able to start a new one. Been doing alot of reading and only thing I'v found was ant hills in a lawn. I just started my garden last monday. I bought a 8x8 area in my backyard and planted tomatoes,broccoli,peppers and cucumbers so far. Today I noticed 5 ant hills forming in it. Should I be concerned or just let them go?

[Des_WA]

In my limited experience and where I live (western WA), ants are harmless except when they start "farming" aphids. They started doing that on my corn last year and it was a pain to deal with.

[!potatoes!]

it'll depend partly on what kind of ants, but chances are good they won't hurt anything.

[johnny123]

Ants are good for soil in more than one way but if they tunnel through plant roots they could cause some damage.

I wouldn't really get to worried over them being in the garden.

[applestar]

I think you got that backwards. you dug up the anthills when you "started" your garden, and it took them this long to dig themselves out!

Typically, a vegetable garden gets too wet, especially when you water, for the ants to be comfortable, and it's very likely they'll relocate after several floodings. But they are part of nature's waste removal team and you don't really want to be without them.

Their extensive tunnels also help to aerate the soil and I consider them useful in compacted lawn. One time, we tried pouring a bucket of water in a depression where there were anthills, and the water basically drained right down into the hole.

Ants CAN be a nuisance in the garden when they bring aphids and other plant sucking, honeydew producing pest bugs to pasture on your plants, but at the same time, you can use them as an early warning system because if you see ants climbing up and down your plants, it's a good bet that there is some bug dining on it, and you can find and take appropriate action.

We don't have them around here, but fire ants and other stinging ants maybe a different story.

[speedster7926]

I had large fire ants last year all over my okra they were eating the flowers and burrowing into the okra itself. they were a pain literally because I would get stung every time I had to pick the okra. I lost prob half the crop to them.

[Bobberman]

Big black ants seem to like sunflower main stems and are on the back side of the leaves but don't seem to hurt them!

[applestar]

I usually find lace bugs and/or treehoppers when I follow those ants up the sunflowers. Not much I can do once the sunflowers grow beyond my reach, but I remove the clustered sucking pest bugs until then. After that the sunflowers can usually withstand the little pests.

[splat42069]

Thanks guys! these are tiny little black ants and I havent seen any new hills apear lately ill leave them be. Applestar long time no see! Hope your gardens are doing wonderful this year!