Hi! Been a while since I've been to the forums...

I'm doing only container gardening this year, consisting of individual pots and 5 gallon buckets, and a wooden half-barrel planter on my tiny cement apartment porch.

The half barrel has carrots in it with a single Tashkent marigold in the middle, all of which I grew from seed.

Unfortunately if they had their way, it would also have a bumper crop of carpenter ants. So far I have killed at least a dozen queens who burrowed in around the perimeter. I killed them by pouring vinegar down their holes if I didn't catch and smash them before they burrowed, and boy, did it work well! I then decided to pour it all around the perimeter, soaking the wood and the soil to about 3 inches in. Unfortunately this also killed all carrots within 5 inches of the rim, leaving a group of carrots right in the middle with the marigold. But no more carpenter ants! :D

As the carrots weren't growing properly anyway (all greens instead of root), they're not that much of a loss. However, now I have a bare ring around the outside that I would like to fill with something, possibly the rest of the marigold seedlings I have. The question is, can I do this or will the vinegar in the soil continue to kill any plants planted there? If that's the case, what do I need to do to make that soil plantable again, without disturbing the plants in the middle who are just fine? Would just soaking the area with water dilute and wash out the vinegar enough to make it safe to plant? should I cover it with more soil?

I am getting some DE next week when I can afford it to keep further ants at bay, but the vinegar I had on hand and I really really needed to kill the big bastards as they were also visiting me inside at night.

--GW