Coffee grounds vs. ants

rayama

17 years ago

I read in a book on organic living "Better Basics for the Home" (fascinating book, btw) that coffee grounds repel ants.

Since a lot of us are putting pounds of coffee grounds all over the place, has anyone noticed fewer ants?

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Comments (8)

pablo_nh
17 years ago
You might try searching the IPM forum. They always have stuff about UCG's against ants, grounds against slugs, against cats, sugar against fire ants, etc. etc.

Be careful to distinguish UCG's from fresh ones- if the caffein is the active ingredient then most is probably missing in UCG's.
bpgreen
17 years ago
"You might try searching the IPM forum."

What's the IPM forum?

I haven't heard of using coffee grounds to repel ants, and haven't noticed the coffee grounds I use on the lawn reducing the number of ants I have, either.
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pablo_nh
17 years ago
Integrated Pest Management. Sorry about that. When you work for GE, you start to use lots of TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms :)
richdelmo
17 years ago
Whats GE :)
tiffy_z5_6_can
17 years ago
I use a lot of UGGs in gardening, mainly through composting (250lbs+/wk) which I apply liberally on the gardens. It is my main source of nitrogen. Moved here 5 years ago, and the soil is/was quite poor - very little organic matter - which made for great conditions for the ants. Basically the lack of organics in the soil created nice dry conditions for them to nest wherever they pleased.

The ant population has diminished (not disappeared) in the gardens which have been amended. I don't think you can directly attribute the decline to the UCGs, but instead to the fact that the soil is now rich in organic matter and retains moisture much better - something the ants do not prefer.
buffburd
17 years ago
It could be the added moisture, but I had a several foot long section of a planter in front of my house full of ants that left soon after I started adding coffee grounds to the area this summer.

I did try pouring boiling water on them first, which seemed to slow them down, but they kept on taking over more of the box in the other direction, until I added the coffee grounds.

Some ants were still around, since I remember seeing them on the sunflowers in the box, but I didn't see any more of their digging in the soil later. They dug quite a bit of soil out to the surface before they left.
elphaba_gw
17 years ago
This topic has been discussed here before. Coffee grinds will chase away ants. I tried it and worked so easily. Check out the thread at:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/soil/msg0811304110623.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread on Coffee grounds and ants
squeeze
17 years ago
if you really wanna keep ants away, use cinnamon and/or turmeric ... works a treat

Bill