We have oodles of ants every year, but then we're in a part of Oklahoma that has had major fire ant issues for well over a decade.

They're always worst in April, May and June following heavy rains. After that, the extreme summer heat drives them back underground.

I use a granular Spinosad-based product to treat the mounds that pop up in the veggie garden. While we generally avoid chemical products, in the past we have used either "Over and Out" or "Once And Done" about once every 3 years to knock down the numbers of fire ants in the yard.They are not approved for use around edible crops though, so I use the spinosad around veggies, herbs and fruits. Lots of our friends in Texas use these fire ant products every year or even several times per year, but I just won't use chemicals that heavily.

At least the ants aren't trying to come into the house, which is a problem some years.

When they make mounds around plants in the garden, I just use a long-handled rake to stir up their mound a couple of times a day for a few consecutive days. They get tired of being messed with and relocate to just outside the garden fence. I've never felt like they were doing much damage to the plants......since I have dense clay soil, they're probably helping my plants by tunneling through the soil and aerating it, but I don't like having fire ant mounds in the garden.

We have both the imported fire ants and native ants of all kinds as well. They're part of the ecosystem and we'll never get rid of them, so I just do my best to keep them out of the veggie garden, sometimes successfully and sometimes not so successfully.

Dawn

I've had more ant trouble this year than ever before. I don't have fire ants but I've had 2-3 different kinds of ants in and around the house all spring. It seems as soon as I get rid of one batch, another comes in and takes its place. I've been wondering if the drought affects their food source and drives them indoors.

My daughter opened her front passenger door yesterday and found several hundred ants and eggs under the door on the rail. She said she had opened the door 20 hours before and they weren't there. She had sprayed Roundup next to the driveway where the car was parked and wondered if that had caused them to relocate into her car. No way that many eggs were laid overnight. They were the little bitty black ants that bite when disturbed.

This might seem a bit odd. I mentioned before that I was having issues with my foe the white butterfly attacking my cole crops. Not soon after the ants moved in (I assume) and started attacking and (eating I suppose) the offspring. I no longer have cabbage worms but now I have ants on them =). The are not seeming to bother the cabbage though as it seems to be getting bigger and more beautiful every day (they are that 50lb head variety) So I am not sure if I should be concerned... as long as they dont start farming aphids I will allow them to exist peacefully for the time being I think.

I don't do much to control the ants outside, because they really haven't caused us any problems yet. I hate when they start invading the house, though, and we do use chemicals to kill them around our baseboards and windowsills. We're very careful to keep our cats locked in another room until the stuff dries.

This year I haven't seen a ton of ants yet. I mean, yeah, I've seen them in the yard and in our strawberries, but I wouldn't say it's more than usual.

We are absolutely overrun with ants here at our house in Norman (in yard, anyway). Don't have any in the house, but they have taken over our yard completely. However, my plants have yet to show signs of disturbance, so I'm letting the little suckers be for now.

I must have 7-8 different types of ants in my main garden this year as well (Durant in SE OK), the peskiest though is this super tiny black ant, which swarm all over my okra and squash leaves. I would have thought they were farming aphids, but I see no sign of them on these plants. But I do think these tiny black ants saw through branches of the plants. Overall, this year has been the most challenging yet for me as a gardener down here, it feels like my crops are about a month behind.

kfrinkle,

I think it is the weather. We were too hot too early down here in southern OK, then cool, then too hot, etc. It is a crazy, mixed up year.

I'm over south of Marietta and we've always had those little black ants here too. They don't really seem to bother much of anything. We also have the big red harvester ants who are helpful in the garden because they carry out, among other things, the dead carcasses of insects.

If the ants bother you, you can sprinkle an organic fire ant killer that contains Spinosad on their mounds or hills to get rid of them. I usually just use it on fire ants. In general, ants are beneficial insects in our garden...unless they are farming the aphids.

Dawn

There's not a week goes by that I don't think several times about how happy I am to no longer have to worry about fire ants and scorpions. We had both bad in OK and we were all constantly getting bites & stings.

I feel for you.

Diane