It seems that I have finally won the war against the ants in my veggie beds. The ants had infested 3 of my beds. Whenever I got near the beds the ants would start crawling all over my shoes and up my legs. Yes - ants in the pants quite literally!. They were aggressive little buggers and liked to bite too. Ouch.

I have been using diatomaceous earth as my plan of attack for a few months. It's a organic crawling pest killer that is completely human/pet/food safe. It ends up cutting and dehydrating crawling bugs as they walk through and eat it. I think I went through 3 boxes of it in total. But it was only recently that the ants went away. One problem with diatomaceous earth is that it cannot get wet. Once it is wet it needs to be re-applied. Since June was so rainy I ended up having to re-apply it several times a week, and it didn't seem to be helping.

When applying I pour it all over the ant hills and then use a hand rake tool to mix it in and disturb the ant colony. Needless to say I had to wear gloves while doing this because it would send the ants into attack mode instantly. Then I would apply some more on top. I was beginning to give up. I checked w/ a local garden center (Primex) and they said that diatomaceous earth is the only real safe and organic way (especially in vegetable beds) to fight the ants, and to keep at it.

But now that the weather has dried up the diatomaceous earth has done the trick. The ants are gone! I guess I just needed to have a few dry days for the stuff to start working.