How to Eliminate Ants and Aphids in Greenhouse Gardening

Greenhouse gardening provides a protected environment, but outdoor pests happily become squatters, especially if you have a natural earth floor. You’ll want to eliminate ants and aphids when greenhouse gardening because the ants can actually protect and create more aphids, spreading them live to every plant in the greenhouse (ants harvest honeydew from aphids for food without killing them). Aphids not only destroy plants directly, their honeydew can cause a black mold to grow on plants. Luckily, by eliminating ants, you can often also eliminate aphids in your greenhouse much more easily. Here’s a simple and natural method that works synergistically to eliminate ants and aphids together.

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Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Fill the air with mint essential oil. You can often eliminate ants with the scent of mint because ants are repelled by it. They don’t go immediately screaming and running out the door the first instant the scent is in the air, but if the scent remains consistent, they’ll usually leave on their own. This is where you have an advantage with greenhouse gardening – you can more easily keep a scent within the closed borders. Buy a mint essential oil (there are several varieties – spearmint is a good one) at a health food store and diffuse it day and night in the greenhouse. If your greenhouse has electricity, you can buy an inexpensive, small electric diffuser that keeps it going for you 24 hours a day. If not, set a few rags dabbed with the mint oil around the greenhouse and refresh them morning and evening. This actually makes greenhouse gardening pleasant because the scent is enjoyable to humans. Be sure you get essential oil, not culinary or fragrance oil.

2. Plant a few pots of spearmint in the greenhouse. The oil will be useful, but you need an extra boost to eliminate ants. Mint herbs, including spearmint, are extremely easy to grow in pots and make a great plant to work with when you’re greenhouse gardening, anyway. Be sure to plant them in small pots because they are invasive, and set them near the most vulnerable plants where you want to eliminate ants and aphids. People often use spearmint and other mint plants to eliminate ants outdoors as well, but it works even better with greenhouse gardening because, again, the greenhouse walls help preserve the scent the ants don’t like.

3. Rinse off your plants with clear water. While you eliminate ants with the oil and mint plants, and after they’re gone, rinse of your aphid infested plants with clear water to knock the aphids off. This is a time-honored natural method for getting rid of aphids outdoors and it works for greenhouse gardening also, but not for long if there are ants that will simply put more aphids back on the plants. Once you eliminate ants, you can eliminate aphids much more easily, making for much happier and healthier greenhouse gardening

Tips & Warnings

• Essential oils are powerful so keep from getting them in eyes and other sensitive areas. Check with a doctor to make sure you don't have an allergy to mint.
• Author disclaims liability and offers article for educational purposes only.

[sonni57]

on 11/16/2009 Good advice on getting rid of pests in a greenhouse garden.