Ants go home

I have started to transition the garden for the last three to four months of growing season. Two of the boxes have been cleared and I don't think I have ever pulled such extreme root systems.

I am used to seeing one main tap root, these plants had a minimum of two or three tap roots. A machete would have made a good tool for the replanting of the boxes. Then to add to the struggle of clearing the boxes, I was fighting the ants who decided to take up residence in my boxes.

Do not run for the Amdro. The best method for handling ants in the garden is diatomaceous earth and it is easily purchased at your local home improvement or pool store.

What makes diatomaceous earth or DE filter powder such a wonderful organic method to waylay the ants is that the ants can never get used to it. DE is the equivalent of climbing across glass shards for the ants and feels like powder to us. I know that diatomaceous earth is safe for humans because it is an ingredient in one of my face washes.

The newest modification that is being made to the boxes is adding two cups of lime, one cup of DE powder and a couple of teaspoons of epsom salts (not really salt) to help the tomatoes use the calcium in the lime better. That way the new tomato plants will be able to avoid blossom end rot and be productive through the fall until the first frost.

Once the boxes were prepped, I planted a marigold plant and two tomatoes in each box. The other new addition was Garden Patch's Tomato Trigger, a red plastic planting mat for tomatoes, strawberries and any other plants that prefer the red part of the color spectrum.

The red plastic was an FDA experiment about twenty years ago and tomatoes produced about 20 to 25 percent more tomatoes with the red plastic mulch. I don't have to look for the specialty plastic now that I can buy the Tomato Triggers.

It will be interesting to see if the experiment will work for the tomatoes and the ants. I hate throwing out my tenants but it is my garden and I don't like to be bit.