Bergundy Okra and Ants

So my first garden (see my previous post about the Summer Garden - 2011) and my first pest struggle. About the time my bergundy okra starts budding I start seeing ants.

Tons of ants.

So of course I begin looking up organic pest control means. I tried all of the ideas I could find.

1) Coffee grounds are supposed to be eaten by the ants and the ants are supposed to implode. So I try it to no avail. Now maybe it works, but ants are a problem of shear numbers and coffee grounds I set out made no noticeable difference to the quantity of ants I had on my okra.

2) Baking soda is supposed to be poisonous to ants. This is supposed to be used as a deterrent. So try it. It seems to work until of course the damp night air makes the baking soda a crusty cake rather than a powder. At this point the ants just walk across it.

3) Flour  and baby powder are supposed to be deterrents to ants as well. So I tried the flour and similar to baking soda it works for a day or so. Then, the ants are back.

4) Vinegar 50% vinegar 50% water mixture. Works great! Until it dries and the ants are back once again.

5) Organic pepper spray: hot peppers minced and combined with cooking oil, strained to remove the pepper pieces and mixed with liquid dish soap (organic dish soap) and water. Similar to the vinegar solution, this works great, until it dries and the ants come right back.

6) Diatomaceous earth - this one I am pretty sure would as I have tried it on fleas and it works awesome on fleas. Diatomaceous earth absorbs lipids from the insects exoskeletons and they die of dehydration. But I didn't try this one because of all the moisture in the garden. Since the diatomaceous earth absorbs moisture I assumed watering would quickly make it useless in the garden.

So what did I do? Well, I eventually stumbled onto an article that said ants were not necessarily a problem for okra. It said that prior to the introduction of fire ants to the United States, ants were not considered harmful to okra. The ants are actually not feeding on the okra plant but are feeding on aphids that are growing on the okra. So I went out and double checked and sure enough no signs of fire ants (fire ants are reddish); the ants I have are all black ants. To further check this theory, I took a closer look at the okra leaves and sure enough there are these little bugs on them that the ants appeared to be eating. So I left the ants alone.

I have tons of ants in my garden but I haven't seen any sign of fire ants and I haven't seen any significant damage caused by the ants. The ants appear to be primarily focused on the bugs (aphids I am assuming) on the okra plants. So I have left them alone. I now consider these ants to be my little garden helpers.