While ants do serve some benefit to your garden by controlling the population of other pests and improving plant pollination by marching from flower to flower while searching for food, they’re also a major nuisance pest. If you’re tired of finding ants in your plants, keep reading to learn natural, pet-safe ways to get rid of ants from your garden and home.

Natural, Pet-Safe Ways To Get Rid of Ants

Diatomaceous Earth 

Diatomaceous Earth (aka DE or diatomite) is a non-toxic, eco-friendly, and very inexpensive product that works wonders against ants and other common household pests.

What is it, exactly?

Diatomaceous Earth is a fine powder made from the remains of fossilized algae and the shells of small aquatic organisms, called diatoms.

How does it work?

Diatomaceous Earth contains tiny microscopic pieces that are razor-sharp! These particles work by cutting through the hard exoskeleton of ants and other insects that walk through the powder. Once the exoskeleton of an insect has been pierced by the Diatomaceous Earth, it will eventually dehydrate and die. While Diatomaceous Earth is deadly if touched by ants, it just feels like a soft, fine powder to humans and pets. It is considered one of the most effective, pet-safe ways to get rid of ants.

Is it dangerous to humans or pets?

Unlike insects like ants that have exoskeletons, mammals (like humans and dogs) have a natural protective barrier that is our skin. Our skin is a large organ that quickly heals itself so the tiny microscopic sharpness of DE isn’t an immediate danger to us. It is one of the most relatively pet-safe ways to get rid of ants. That being said, there are some safety precautions to consider when using Diatomaceous Earth.

if you’re planning to use diatomaceous earth in places where you or your pet frequent often – you should opt for a ‘food grade’ diatomaceous earth. Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth is recognized as non-toxic and generally recognized as safe by the FDA, since it’s often marketed as a health product safe for human consumption, which makes it a safer option for curious pets that might be tempted to sneak a taste when you’re not watching! While it is technically ‘non-toxic’, you still be a responsible pet owner and watch that your pet doesn’t frequent areas where you’ve applied DE.

While Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth is technically safe and ‘non-toxic’, it can still cause irritation to nasal passages or even irritate skin or eyes due to it’s abrasive nature. It can also trigger asthma symptoms or even cause other respiratory health problems if you or your pet inhale or ingest it. You should wear a mask, goggles, and gloves when handling and applying Diatomaceous Earth, especially if you have asthma, allergies or are particularly prone to other respiratory or skin health issues.

How to apply Diatomaceous Earth (DE) to your garden to get rid of ants:

• Water your plants then dust them generously with the diatomaceous earth. The moisture from watering will help the powder actually stick to the plants!
• Lift up potted plants, taking care to sprinkle a generous amount of DE under each planter. Sprinkle the powder over the top soil of the plant, too. 
• If you notice ant hills or trails, sprinkle DE along the trails and on and around the ant hills. If you find a large group of ants, you can also spread the powder directly over them and create a perimeter around them that will force them to walk through the product.
• Keep some extra DE on hand to reapply for when it’s inevitably washed away by watering, sprinklers, and rainfall!

How to apply Diatomaceous Earth (DE) around your home to get rid of ants:

• Start by assessing where you’ve seen ants around your home. Usually they tend to congregate in kitchens and downstairs bathrooms, which provide easy access to food and water to ants. If you can, follow the ants and figure out where they’re entering into your home from.
• Once you discover the ant trails, apply a thin layer of Diatomaceous Earth along them. If you happen to stumble upon a larger grouping of ants within your home, you can sprinkle the powder directly over them and create a perimeter around them that they’ll be forced to walk through, further exposing them to the DE.
• Spread a thin layer of DE along baseboards, floor boards, window sills, along the underside of your doorway, and along any other cracks leading into your home from outside. You can use a duster designed for use with DE, like this, or an old makeup blush brush to help apply the product more precisely in more hard to reach areas.
• Keep a close eye on the treated areas to see if the ants have created an alternative route around the product. Reapplication on the new routes may be needed.
• If you notice the ants have gone and are no longer coming into your home, you can clean up the DE by carefully washing the floor. We recommend either mopping or using damp paper towels to help lift and remove the product. Avoid sweeping or vacuuming up the powder, which can stir the dust up into the air and cause potential lung irritation!
• As a preventative measure, sprinkle a light application of diatomaceous earth outside of your home around the foundation. Create a perimeter going out at least 6-12 inches, focusing on areas where ants are most likely to enter into your home. Reapply this perimeter when needed, such as when the DE is washed away during rainfall.

As with any chemical or product, please follow individual product label instructions for application to avoid harming yourself, pets, or others!

Borax

Borax is a common household cleaning product, usually used to boost the washing power of normal laundry detergent (to lift heavy stains) or for fighting grime and mildew.

What is it, exactly?

Borax is a white powder, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate. It’s a combination of boron, sodium, and oxygen, that’s often found in dry lake beds in places like Death Valley, California – where the water quickly evaporates and leaves behind deposits of minerals. Borax comes from those naturally-forming mineral deposits.

How does it work?

Borax is toxic to insects like ants. Once consumed by ants, it acts as a slow-acting poison – damaging their digestive systems and ultimately resulting in death. Like diatomaceous earth, the ants don’t die immediately. This is actually a benefit to using Borax as a pest control product, though. The borax acts slowly enough that it allows worker ants to carry the substance back into their colonies where other ants will then ingest it and die, too.

How to Use Borax to Get Rid of Ants

Something to keep in mind if you use borax is that ants won’t eat it on its own. It needs to be mixed with something such as sugar, honey, or syrup to entice ants into consuming it.

• To make a simple borax bait, mix 1/2 cup of sugar, 1.5 Tablespoons of borax, and 1.5 cups of warm water together in a small disposable cup until blended.
• Next, you’ll need some type of container to hold the liquid borax ant bait. You can use a small plastic container, a plastic lid, a paper plate, or even a cotton ball/pad. Remember to make sure the ants can easily get in and out of your bait holder to ensure they aren’t drowning in the solution and instead are taking it back to their colony!
• Place your bait holder somewhere where ants will find it but where it’s well hidden away from the reach of curious pets, such as tucked underneath your refrigerator. Borax, while generally considered one of the most pet-safe ways to get rid of ants, is still considered mildly toxic to pets and can cause upset stomach and vomiting if accidentally eaten.

Vinegar

Vinegar, both apple cider and white vinegar, are common household ingredients used in many home remedies for ants and other insects. But that doesn’t mean it’s the best.

Does it work?

The short answer is, kind of.

There’s a common assumption that vinegar works at killing pests because of it’s acidity – which, unfortunately, is false. Vinegar technically can work to kill ants but it needs to sprayed directly onto the insects in large amounts. Even then, it’s not the acidity that kills them. The vinegar works primarily by drowning the ant in the fluid, which is something that can also be done with just plain water.

The best use of vinegar against ants is to use it to stop their trails. As ants march between your plants and through your home, often in search of food, they leave behind a trail of pheromones that let other ants know where the food sources they find are. Cleaning with a particularly pungent product like vinegar can help cover up these pheromones, preventing them from being detected by other ants, which can ultimately help deter them from your home. Additionally, vinegar is one of the most pet-safe ways to get rid of ants.

To Use Vinegar as a Homemade Ant Spray

• In an empty spray bottle, dilute the vinegar with water. Create a 50/50 solution that is half (50%) water and half (50%) vinegar in the spray bottle.
• Assess where you’ve seen ants around your home. Typically, they tend to congregate in kitchens and downstairs bathrooms, which provide easy access to food and water. If you can, follow the ants and figure out where they’re entering into your home from. Keep track of their “trails”.
• Spray the vinegar solution generously along the trails. You can either leave the product on and let it dry or use a paper towel to wipe the solution (and any lingering ant pheromones) away.
• Keep a close eye on the treated areas to see if the ants have created an alternative route around where the solution was applied. Reapplication on the new routes may be needed.
• If applying to or around plants, first test your solution on or near the plants by spraying a small spot of the vinegar mixture and waiting a day or two. Check for any burn marks on the plants or discoloration of the soil during this time. If your plant doesn’t react to the vinegar, you can spray the solution generously over the rest of the plant.

Lemon Juice

Lemon juice can be used as a more pleasant smelling alternative to the vinegar solution described above. It’s not a great solution for killing ants but it can work to help repel them. It works the same as vinegar by destroying the pheromone scent trails of ants, deterring them from crawling around your home and all over your plants. Additionally, lemon juice is one of the most pet-safe ways to get rid of ants.

To Use Lemon Juice as a Homemade Ant Spray

• In an empty spray bottle, dilute the lemon juice with water. Create a 50/50 solution that is half (50%) water and half (50%) lemon juice in the spray bottle. You can either use the juice from freshly squeezed lemons of concentrated, shelf-stable lemon juice from your local grocer.
• Assess where you’ve seen ants around your home. Typically, they tend to congregate in kitchens and downstairs bathrooms, which provide easy access to food and water. If you can, follow the ants and figure out where they’re entering into your home from. Keep track of their “trails”.
• Spray the lemon juice solution generously along the trails you find. After letting the product sit for awhile, use a paper towel to wipe the solution (and any lingering ant pheromones) away.
• Keep a close eye on the treated areas to see if the ants have created an alternative route around where the solution was applied. Reapplication on the new routes may be needed.

Cinnamon

Like with vinegar and lemon juice, cinnamon is another option that can help repel ants. While it won’t kill them, they will stay usually away from it. Something to keep in mind, is that the ants usually find a way around where the cinnamon was sprinkled so it’s not the best method. If you’re just looking for a quick fix to help deter ants while you work to find a better solution to getting rid of them, it can help.

How to use cinnamon to get rid of ants

• Sprinkle powdered cinnamon at entry points around your home and where you see ants collectively gathering to help deter them from those areas.
• Sprinkle powdered cinnamon around your garden and under your flower pots to help prevent ants from crawling around and into your planters. As a bonus, other common garden pests like rabbits, squirrels, and even moles are often deterred by the scent of cinnamon, too.

Essential Oils

There are many essential oils that are thought to help repel ants plants, including:

• Chamomile oil
• Cedarwood oil
• Basil oil
• Cinnamon oil (VERY toxic to BOTH dogs and cats)
• Citronella oil (VERY toxic to BOTH dogs and cats)
• Clove Bud oil (toxic to dogs and cats)
• Wintergreen oil (toxic to cats and VERY toxic to dogs)
• Peppermint oil (toxic to dogs and VERY toxic to cats)
• Tea Tree oil (toxic to cats and VERY toxic to dogs)
• Citrus oils (toxic to dogs and VERY toxic to cats)
• Thyme oil (toxic to dogs, potentially toxic to cats)
• Garlic oil (VERY toxic to dogs)
• Lavender oil (VERY toxic to cats)
• Eucalyptus oil (VERY toxic to cats)
• Rosemary oil (potentially toxic to cats)
• Sage oil (potentially toxic to cats)
• Ginger oil (should be used with caution around cats)

Essential oils are not an effective solution and even worse is that many aren’t actually that safe for use around pets (as indicated above), despite being a more ‘natural’ solution. While we wanted to include them in this article because of their every-growing popularity, we DO NOT recommend using essential oils for any type of pest control. Using essential oils is one of the least pet-safe ways to get rid of ants. Not only are essential oils not very effective against getting rid of ants and other pests, there’s a high likelihood misuse could seriously harm your pet. The risk to reward ratio just isn’t good enough to consider using essentials oils for pest control.

If you still choose to use essential oils, these oils should be diluted appropriately per the directions on the bottle of the product and only applied directly onto plants and soil, well away from your pets.

Chalk

Chalk works similarly to vinegar, lemon juice, and essential oils to disrupt the scent trails left behind by ants. Something to keep in mind, is that while you may be able to detour ants with chalk lines, the ants will likely just find a different path to take to get inside of your home so it’s not a very effective solution for pest control. However, chalk is considered one of the most pet-safe ways to get rid of ants.

The best use of chalk is to use it outside to keep ants away from plants. Draw a thick chalk line on the concrete around your potted plants to create a barrier to help deter ants from crossing and crawling all over your plants.

Is your ant problem OUT OF CONTROL? 

If you’ve tried multiple methods of ant control and continue to find ants are taking over your garden and possibly even your home, it may be time to call in the pros. Give go2-pros extermination a call! Our ant experts can help you with more permanent, pet-safe ways to get rid of ants.