You just want to be able to enjoy spending time out in your yard as much as you can. If you’ve found that your yard is full of ants and various ant colonies, that might be a big problem that will keep you from having fun.
It’s hard to lay out in the sun in your backyard if you have ants crawling all over the place and many people get quite bothered by having them so near their homes.
It’s also true that having a large ant infestation in your yard could lead to issues such as the ants coming into your home. When this problem gets out of hand, it could wind up being a bigger nuisance and it makes sense to try to take care of things.
Is there a way for you to get rid of ants in grass naturally, though? Keep reading to learn about your options.
1 – Spray Anthills with Vinegar
One of the best things you can do is use vinegar to keep ants from wanting to come in your yard again.
If you can find the anthill where they came from, you can easily spray a bunch of vinegar in the anthill. Ants can’t stand vinegar and it’ll kill them really well but there are some potential problems to consider with this option.
The first thing to note is that vinegar has the potential to be harmful to the nearby vegetation. If the anthill happens to be near some plants that you would like to save, you might wish to hold back since the plant could be damaged by the vinegar that you’re spraying.
Vinegar is quite potent and it can even damage the topsoil if you spray a whole lot of it.
You’re likely going to have to spray quite a bit of vinegar if you’re trying to kill a colony of ants. Just be aware that this can cause issues for plants so that you can be prepared for that.
To get the best results, you’re going to want to mix up vinegar and water into a spray bottle in equal parts.
2 – Soapy Water
Did you know that soapy water can actually be used to kill ants that are in your grass? This is a classic option for getting rid of ants that will be very simple to pull off. Perhaps best of all, you aren’t going to have to spend much money for this to work.
A little bit of soap mixed with water can kill ants for you and it’s also going to be pretty safe for your lawn. Just make sure that you’re using an environmentally friendly soap that doesn’t use a bunch of harmful chemicals.
If you take the time to pick a good type of soap, you’re going to have a good experience with this method.
Just spray your soapy mixture wherever you see ants congregating. If you do manage to find anthills in your yard, pouring a bunch of soapy water on those anthills is a good idea.
You can get rid of your ant problem pretty quickly if you use this method but you will need to track the ants down to make it work.
3 – Chili Pepper and Cayenne Pepper
This next outside-the-box idea is going to allow you to create a type of homemade ant repellent that works quite well.
You can use some chili pepper or some cayenne pepper to keep ants at bay. You just need to sprinkle it at the spots in your lawn where they seem to be hanging out.
As usual, the best method will be to track down anthills and place the chili pepper or cayenne pepper all around it. You can make it more effective by mixing the cayenne pepper or chili pepper up with water to make a spray.
This can then be sprayed on the anthill and you could even pour it down the anthill if possible to really get rid of the ants.
As you might expect, the problem with this idea is that it could be harmful to pets. If you have dogs that are going to be using the lawn to do their business, you might not want to pour a bunch of chili pepper water all over the place. It could be quite bad for your dog and you don’t want to hurt your canine companion.
Those who don’t have pets will be able to more easily make use of this method. It’s easy to do and lots of people have cayenne pepper and chili pepper just sitting in the pantry somewhere.
Consider it as a good option for repelling an ant invasion in your yard.
4 – Cinnamon Oil
If you don’t have any cayenne pepper or chili pepper in your pantry, you might have some cinnamon that you can utilize.
Most people will use cinnamon oil along with water to create a repellent spray but some will simply use ground cinnamon or cloves along with water. Either way will work, and you’re probably more likely to have ground cinnamon in your cupboard somewhere.
The cinnamon oil will work better at killing ants than just ground cinnamon or cinnamon cloves will. If you happen to have some cinnamon oil, it’s a good idea to give that a shot. It can work very effectively to take care of the ants that are giving you problems in your grass.
You might not want to use cinnamon oil if you have plants that you want to protect, though. This is another ant-killing method that can also be quite harmful to vegetation.
If you are an avid gardener, turn to another solution that won’t put your plants in any danger.
5 – Salt Water
Salt can be used to get rid of ants in your yard as well, but you’re going to want to combine it to make a salt water mixture. You can use the standard salt that you use to salt your food if you’d like to.
This is actually going to be effective to use on ants because salt will severely dehydrate them and then cause them to die.
Simply mix some salt water up in a spray bottle so that you can take care of business. Doing so will give you the chance to get rid of large numbers of ants relatively easily. If you can locate the anthill, you can spray lots of salt water directly down it to exterminate many of them.
This is one of the best methods that you can use because salt water should not be harmful to many of the plants in the area. It won’t really hurt your lawn either, and it’s easy enough to recommend doing this.
Just about everyone is going to have table salt that they can use to make an effective ant repellent, too, and that makes it that much more appealing.
6 – Baby Powder or Baking Soda
Even using something such as baby powder or baking soda will help you to get rid of ants in your lawn. You might not have known this, but ants breathe through the spiracles that are located on their exoskeletons.
Substances such as baby powder and baking soda can work to clog up the spiracles and this will kill the ants.
Placing baby powder or baking soda around the area where you’re seeing ants will do the trick. You can pour it on an anthill to take care of a large number of ants at once. If you have a lot of baby powder at your house, then this is a practical way to deal with your problem.
Baking soda works just as well as baby powder and it’s very likely that you will have access to one of these two items.
This method isn’t necessarily more or less effective than many of the other options you’ve been given above. It’s just about what you find to be most convenient and whether you want to put plants in danger by using some of the options that can cause damage to vegetation.
7 – Diatomaceous Earth (DE)
Diatomaceous Earth (DE) is something that is formed in the earth in fossilized skeletons of microscopic algae. This is something that is quite harmful to ants since it can cut them when they walk across it. Interestingly, this is not harmful at all to pets or humans and some people even eat DE.
If you want to find something that can act as an effective ant deterrent method, this could be a good idea. You can buy DE in large enough quantities that you can sprinkle it around the lawn. It won’t harm any of your plants, pets, or kids if you go through with this.
Simply put, this is a method for keeping ants at bay that doesn’t have any real drawbacks. It can even provide some level of nourishment for your lawn since DE is chock-full of things such as calcium and potassium.
Give this a shot if you’re looking for a method that is easy to pull off that will keep ants away from your grass.
8 – Planting Mint
Weirdly enough, mint is something that can act as a deterrent to ants. If you plant some mint in your gardens, ants might be less likely to want to hang out in your yard.
Those who have small yards might only need to plant mint in the normal garden areas to take care of ant problems for good.
Of course, things will be tougher if you have a lot of yard to work with. You might not want to plant mint all over the place, but just know that this is something that ants don’t seem to like. It’s easy to use this to your advantage to keep them at bay.
Many people use this to try to keep ants from coming in their homes. Having mint planted by the entrances to your home should help to keep you from having unwanted insect invaders enter the house.
9 – Exterminators
Perhaps the natural ant-killing methods mentioned above aren’t really working out well for you. It might be more accurate to say that you don’t want to go that route because you don’t have a lot of time to take care of the problem.
In this situation, you can call in professionals to get things done for you.
If you’re very particular about the way that your ant problem gets taken care of, you might want to research the extermination company a bit. Some exterminators might offer services that will use methods that won’t harm the environment, but other companies might not be so careful.
It’s likely that you care about natural methods being used but you might have to go out of your way to find professionals to help, depending on where you live.
The good thing about hiring exterminators is that you can count on the problem to be taken care of in a timely fashion. Exterminators eliminate ant infestations in yards all the time and they know how to get good results.
It likely won’t take them very long to have the ants completely eliminated in your yard and you can expect to have a much better experience moving forward.
Of course, the big problem with hiring exterminators is that you’re going to have to shell out money to pay for it. The natural ant-repellent methods mentioned above are all very inexpensive and most of them utilize things that you already have sitting in your house.
Paying for exterminators could cost you a big chunk of change but there are professionals out there who will try to give you the best deal possible.
Take some time to find exterminators if you just don’t think that you want to handle the issue yourself. The natural ant-killing methods in this article do work rather well but not everyone has a lot of free time.
If you’re a busy professional, hiring someone to do the work might be the most logical option.
Ben has a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering. When not constructing or remodeling X-Ray Rooms, Cardiovascular Labs, and Pharmacies, you can find him at home with wife and two daughters. Outside of family, He loves grilling and barbequing on his Big Green Egg and Blackstone Griddle, as well as working on projects around the house.
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