Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi

Hope this is in the right forum area.

Me and my wife have a compost pile and the compost at the bottom is ready to use but while getting some out the other day we found a very large ants nest .

Is this compost still o.k. to use or do we have to kill the ants first ?

Sorry if this is a dumb question but we are new to all this stuff.

Thanks John and Angel

It's OK to use, ants are not a pest for most veg although they can overwhelm a stem if they build a nest around the roots. I had this with a courgette plant this year but I disrupted the nest and it's fine now.

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Mark

Vegetable Kingdom blog

i started a thread on here for the same thing and the advice i got was to leave them to it unless it really becomes a problem. i have to say that they have caused me no bother

Thank you very much for the help.

Hi Thornton
Ants are attracted to the dry areas of compost so wet it to get it damp and they will up sticks to pastures new. I have done this myself and it works. They really hate the damp.

Once you spread the compost you will 'spread' their nest and they will either die off or go away!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)