ants eating spinach

[vicktrainer]

i am growing spinach but it has been devastated by ants. any suggestions as to how i get rid of them please?

[weterman]

try putting ductape around the plant.

[rainbowgardener]

Sticky side up you mean?

Diatomaceous earth on and around them works too, but has to be renewed after rain.

It is unusual for ants to eat living plants. What does the damage look like? Big round holes in the centers of leaves? Chewed leaf edges? Lots of teeny holes? Markings, discoloration, shrivelling, etc? Have you checked to see if there is anything else there, like aphids?

[jbest123]

I agree with RBG. The ants are your friend in the garden but not in the house.

[DoubleDogFarm]

I agree with RBG. The ants are your friend in the garden but not in the house.

I also like where Rainbow is heading. Aphids are usually moved around by ants. They are a colony of farmers. They could also be cutter ants. Hualing leafy bits back to the nest. Without knowing where you live, hard to know what type of ant.

Eric

[jbest123]

Never thought of the cutter ants in the south west. when the ants are farming the aphids, I never seen the aphid population large enough to harm the plants.

[rainbowgardener]

I had a tree seedling volunteering in the wrong place at one point and thought I would move it. I touched the tree and felt like I got stung. So I looked closer. Much of the little tree was absolutely coated in aphids all lined up touching each other, packed in neatly and they were being very aggressively defended by ants.

[imafan26]

Ants can be quite aggressive especially fire ants.

[rainbowgardener]

We don't have fire ants, thanks to our freezing winters. These were just regular ants, which aren't usually so aggressive, except when defending their "livestock."

[Aida]

Lucky you RainbowGardener, we get lots of scary stuff here-- including GIANT, fat fire ants which are absolutely vicious and aggressive; one sting hurts for a week.