Terro liquid ant baits placed near your pots will quickly take care of the issue, and they're safe.

Alternately, you can mix some boric acid (at drugstore - sold as an eye wash) with honey, corn syrup, or artificially flavored maple syrup. Put the mixture in bottle caps & place near the ant activity - also very safe.

Both the above methods will take care of the entire colony.

If you can keep it dry, DE sprinkled on a flat surface near ant activity will also rid the immediate area.

Al

Thanks, Al.
Borax contains Tetraborate. Do you happen to know if that would also be effective? I think it is used to do laundry.

Sammy

Yes - many people just use borax mixed with sugar or powdered sugar. Don't mix the products containing borax into your soil though. It only takes a very small amount of boron, an element essential to normal plant growth, to create toxicity levels.

Al

I've had some success with a couple cups of molasses in a bucket of water dumped on the containers. It's worked in several of my containers, so it may be worth a try

This is a 'folk remedy', but apparently peels from cucumbers deter ants. Supposed to just lay them (just peeled off the cuke) wherever ants are, and they dissapear.
I did not try this yet.