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Ant problem...?

I have an ant problem in my garden.their not eating the plants that were already established, only the one's that were started from seed outside. I have lost all my bush beans, all of them had ant larva in them and two of my peas were the same and my zucchini. what can I do to get them out of my garden. I have a square foot garden with good organic soil. Help!!! Ok, this is what happened. all my seeds were starting to sprout, my peas were doing great. well I planted 9 bean bushes, only one was sprouting after a few days it stoped growing so I dug all of them up. The beans that were planted looked rotten and had larva in them, the same with 2 of my peas and zucchini, those were all seeds... the plants that started as plants are fine, at least they look really good and are growing well... what ever the problem is can it be fixed? are they going to eat more of my seed started sprouts?

Public Comments

1. Scatter corn meal everywhere. The ants will carry it back to their friends, dine and die. Harmless to plants and pets.
2. Sounds like you also have a slug problem as they eat new greenery as well. You can make some ant bait with equal parts of Powder Sugar, Borax, and Bakers Yeast. Put this mixture in small amounts in the garden but not touching your veggies. The ants will be attracted to the sugar and yeast but the borax mixed with the sugar will kill them. They carry the poisoned yeast to their nest for the rest of the hill to feast on. For the slugs you need to buy slug bait. Good luck.
3. Spread Grits or cornmeal in your garden. They can't digest either and will kill them. Mind you, it takes a little longer than the expensive stuff, but it works.
4. I have never heard of ants larvae being inside plants. Ant larvae are kept in the ant colony and tended by the nurse ants. I suspect you have an infestation of other types of pest. Slugs will eat plants just coming out of the ground. Slugs come out at night, and go into hiding when the sun comes up. Since you are finding larvae inside of the plants, it indicates you are being attacked by insects like stink bugs, thrips etc. They lay eggs on the plants that hatch and the larvae bore into the plant to get the plants juice, causing the plant to die. You can use a couple of table spoons of dish soap in a quart of water, and spray the plants to keep the pest from laying eggs on the plants. Be sure to cover the top and bottom of leaves. You will need to reapply after each watering since the soap washes off.
5. I agree with the other bugs. I believe the ants are getting a bum rap on this one. the soap will work great but you can also get some ultra-fine oil as and spray your plants with that. you can type that name into a search engine and get all the information you need. Its good for almost any plant and I know it works good.