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Originally Posted by Elean0r  We've got a couple of anthills in our garden that we've left alone, they're now about a foot high with grass growing through them. Trouble is we want to grow some vegetables, and the best place is where these anthills are. Is there any way we can perhaps move them to another part of the garden, or is that a silly idea? About how deep into the soil does an ant colony go?
Does anybody know what's likely to happen if we first flatten (take the top off) the the anthills and then double dig the area. Will it totally destroy the colony or could they sort of regroup and start again? |
Ants are a much underated resource to gardeners (there a tradditional attagonism from gardeners mainly because of a few annoying habits the ants have, such as distributing root aphids) so if you can, continue to cherish your two 'hills'. By the sounds of it (grass growing through them) these are relatively new hills where the ants have used grass stems as the scaffolding on which to build up the soil. If this is the case you may find there's actually quite a small mass of soil above ground.
If you definitely do need to have the nests moved from their current location -the following may help a successful transfer:
Prepare a new space on ground that is not waterlogged and which gets some sun. Strip off any turf and loosen any compacted soil, set a small yoghurt pot or similar container with a few dessert spoons of sugar into the centre. Then dig out the hill to be moved, aiming to go at least 15cm below the surrounding ground surface. Move to the new location and seal the 'join' between the hill edge and surrounding surface with turf or soil. If you are moving both hills locate them at least a metre apart.
Double digging of the orginial location will inhibit any return of the ants to that location. - It would be great if you do go ahead with this if you could post a note here next spring to say what the results were.
CM