How to Kill Ants Without Harming a Tomato Plant

Ants are troublesome when it comes to growing tomatoes. Some ants are capable of causing significant damage to tomato plants and the fruit itself. There are techniques that can be employed to reduce and eliminate ants that are damaging tomato plants. A multi-step process is required to completely eliminate the ants.

Things You'll Need

Boiling water
Red pepper
Blender

Uncooked grits
Tap water

Instructions

- 1
  Boil a pot of water. Take the water to your tomato plants that are facing an ant infestation. Pour the boiling water onto the ants to kill them. You likely will have to repeat this step a number of times to rid the area--temporarily--of the ants.
- 2
  Combine water and hot peppers in a blender. Create a dense mash through this process.
- 3
  Spread the red pepper mash around the base of your tomato plants to a radius of about six inches. Ants have a very sensitive sense of smell, and the hot pepper mash will repel them. This process will represent your second line of defense against ants harming your tomato plants.
- 4
  Locate the home ant hill if at all possible. More often than not, the ant hill will be in fairly close proximity to the garden.
- 5
  Sprinkle uncooked grits around the ant hill when their is no moisture at the site. The worker ants will carry the uncooked grits into the ant hill and feed them to the queen.
- 6
  Lightly water the area at and around the ant hill a couple of days after the placement of the grits. The moisture will cause the grits stored in the queen's stomach to expand, killing her. Once the ant hill is without a queen, the ants will die.

Plant Size of Super Sweet 100 & Sun Gold Tomatoes

How to Prune a Desert Tomato

Growing Tomatoes