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The more I find out about nature the more I love it
Even the problem of pests comes with a history of evolution that has to be admired!
Ants are industrious pests that when they find an area of growing plants that have the ideal growing environment they create farms out of your crops
Ants find the larvae of greenflies which is one of their foods groups for their own larvae
They bring these eggs back to the plants and leave them on the plants to hatch and consume the leaves
Obviously then the Greenflies mate and create lots and lots of new larvae for the ants to come along and harvest
Left unchecked the plants will happily support a colony of greenflies let alone the ants
Leaves suddenly crinkling are one of the signs to the problems
This type of infestation is normally found within greenhouses and polytunnels
Once you see leaves crinkling which can also be a sign of sun and wind burning initially you need to look for the ants
Finding the ants and where they are travelling from and to is important as the ants need to "lose" there fields of food
Once separated and the infected plants are in quarantine it is now time to attack the ants and greenflies
For the greenflies - see ladybirds section, there is nothing finer that insect wars - all natural of course!
However, you need to fight the ants as well, as the ants will attack the ladybirds who are trying to eat their food
Ants need to discouraged rather than eliminated - I don’t think it is possible to remove an ant colony as you would have to dig up half the neighbourhood to find the queen
Discouraging the ants is preferable as they just move away from the neighbourhood and find the food elsewhere
This leaves the ladybirds to do their work!
Ants do not like strong powder so with a twist of irony you can protect your chilli plants by leaving the ground covered in chilli powder
This is a basic method of discouraging and may work on small areas - however large polytunnels will find it impractical to find this as a solution
Rather, I would use nematodes to move ants away
Nematodes are worms which ants and other destructive bugs can’t stand and they move their colonies away from the area
Nematodes can be applied directly to the soil and is safe to use with pets and children - it is nature’s own work at play here so no chemicals going on
So apply to the infected area and allow nature to control the problem