How To Get Rid of Ants in the Garden Safely and Naturally

We have a garden. We have small kids and pets. We also have had ants in the back yard. Although the ants don't specifically harm my plants, they do encourage aphids by taking care of aphid predators in that area. Plus fire ants are not fun. Little kids playing and unknowingly sitting on an ant hill = not fun times.

We know that herbicides and pesticides have been strongly linked to cancer in dogs that spend time in yards that have been treated with herbicides and pesticides. We also know that there has been research and a strong correlation between certain types of lymphoma in humans when exposed to herbicides and pesticides. This is a strong reason why we always search for natural solutions to common problems in our garden.

Here is what we do to get rid of ants in our back yard:

Ant Repellant made with Essential Oils:

• 30 drops of Young Living Peppermint Essential Oil (We do not ever substitute our Essential Oil to be other brands. We have not found any other brand that is as potent and effective. Want to learn more? seedtoseal.com. I have personally even been to some of the farms. If you find yourself close to one, I highly recommend stopping! So awesome to see!)
• 10 drops Young Living Spearmint Essential Oil
• 10 Drops Young Living (YL) Citronella Essential Oil (EO)
• 10 drops YL Orange EO
• 10 drops YL Cedarwood EO
• Mix in large bottle (glass or stainless steal preferably if you can find one) with a litre of water. spray on all ant hills and trails in the yard. 

Here is where I buy my essential oils at wholesale pricing. I haven't found any other brand to be as potent or effective. So if you want results, these oils are your best bet: https://www.youngliving.com/vo/#/signup/new-start?sponsorid=13104338&enrollerid=13104338&isocountrycode=CA&culture=en-CA&type=member

Backyard Apples - Picking | Storing | Eating. How and when, tips and info for Apples in Edmonton.

With Fall being around the corner, you have noticed many fruit trees are "ripe for the pickin!" 

In Edmonton this year, we had some hail earlier this season, which may have knocked off the buds or the small fruit at that time. Because of this and the drought, some are not seeing the same fruit load as past years. This hasn't effected all of the fruit trees in and around Edmonton though! I have seen many apple and cherry trees that are laden with fruit this week. 

I came across an article by Salisbury Greenhouse and thought I would share. It has great info about different types of apples and how they are best used. It also talks about storing, picking and eating. Tips are always great when you are learning or a new home owner and find yourself with a new apple tree and don't have previous experience! 

So here you go! Enjoy!

The Sweetest Thing: Picking | Storing | Eating. Apples in Edmonton

Apple Maggots in Edmonton

I found an interesting read today. Perhaps this is what has been happening to my Apples and Cherries!!

http://salisburygreenhouse.com/apple-maggots-101/

Apparently I need to not compost these apples and make sure to pick them up as soon as they fall!

Our Gardens July 4th 2014

This year, we planted on May long weekend and the following week as well. I brought in more dirt from the farm and built a new flower box, which I planted mostly annuals with a few perennials. Pictures to come. Being 8 Months pregnant, I wasn't sure how much gardening I would want to do this summer. My love for it has not wavered though, this belly makes for hard weeding. Yay for the raised gardens! Haha! As for our veggie garden, front garden and herb garden, here is what we have so far.

My Herb Garden this year. Needs a bit of weeding again. :) I left it to seed last fall and it has come back beautifully. My arch of parsley however, has not come in at all this year around. I replanted but nothing came out. I will try again here right away. Also my dill did not come in. I love Dill! One of my favourites! I tried replanting that as well and nothing. I will try replacing again up front, where there is more sun and see if it does any better here. 

I added some strawberries to help fill my herb garden. They are multiplying slowly and that is the plan.  I picked two ripe red ones yesterday and have another I saw this morning. I have to be quick so the birds don't get them. Does anyone have any tips to save my strawberries from those pesky crows?

POTATOES!!! I planted 9 Yukon Golds this year. This is the first year I planted potatoes in the garden location. So far they are doing great! I planted 6 here along the sunny south side of the deck and another 3 along the shaded part. All 9 are doing well. The sunny ones are bigger though of course!

My Green Onions came in so early this spring as the snow melted. I have been breaking off the flowers on top and not sure what the result will be if I leave them on? Will the onion be more bitter? Also, my garlic chives, as you can see to the right on the picture, I have left the flowers. I am wondering, if I keep breaking off the flowers, will they still come back nicely next year? 

This is my Small Sweet Roma Climbing Tomato Plant. I got all of my tomato plants, as well as a few perennials this year from Dianne's Mom, here in Edmonton. 

This is my Sub Arctic Early Tomato Plant.

This one is the Caspian Pink Heirloom Tomato. The fruit should be large. Ill take pictures of the actual tomatoes once they are ripe for picking!

This one is a Bush Beefsteak. She only had this one left and had be rejected by someone else due to yellowed leaves. So far its growing strong. I lucked out!

I let the lettuce last year go to seed. It has randomly popped up wherever. Its great! Haha! It is making a nice filler of space between the larger plants and I can thin them out as the other plants need the space. Lots of lush green! Plus they came in at their own pace and seem to be doing great! I also planted corn along the rope trellis and beans. Beans will give the soil nitrogen and corn needs nitrogen, so win win! The beans can climb the trellis and the corn if it likes. I also have a cucumber planted here along the bottom left corner. Butternut squash, zucchini (which came up unexpectedly) and a watermelon sugar baby. The watermelon promptly died. I wonder if Salisbury has a policy for that?

This one is Vilma Compact Cherry Tomato. It has some spots on some of the leaves. i put some Sevin on the leaves. Hope that helps.

And this one I believe is Folcarosso Red Plumb Shape Tomato plant. 

So tomatoes in same spot as last year, and then radishes with spinach and beets (a variety of different beets throughout). carrots (again a variety), peas (Only ONE came up out of the whole package. I replanted again the day before yesterday.) and some rocket lettuce at the far end. Along the deck side, I put alternating, lettuce and swiss chard. 

Also, in between the pea rows, I put spinach. They have already bolted from this hot hot week we are having. I pinched off.

Sweet Millian Yellow Tumbling Tomato for a basket or planter pot. I have to keep these well watered as they dry out quickly!

This one is Balcony Charm Tomato. 

My Mint. Someone gave me this plant in the winter. One of those little herb plants from Safeway. It has gone crazy growing since I planted it here!

This is my MOSQUITO REPELLING Plant Mix! It has Marigold 'Lemon Gem' (The yellow flowers), Lemon Grass (The tall spiky grass in the back), Citronella Geranium (The pink flowers), Golden Thyme (Along the front and under the Marigold - cuz the Marigold got so big!),  and Artist Purple Ageratum hybrid (its a purple flower kind of buried under the marigold as well). So far, I haven't seen one mosquito on my deck!

This is my Avocado tree I started last year and it grew in the house all winter. It wilted some when I moved it outside. I slowly introduced it to outside a little each day for about a week but still wilty. 

My Hostas. I LOVE HOSTAS! They took a while to come back this spring so I was worried they were not going to. And yet here they are, strong and beautiful!

I added a few new perennials that I got from Dianne's mom this spring. My tiger lilly came in from last year and the irises along the wall. We are planning to add dirt slowly as we bring it from the farm and build up a garden with actual dirt here over time. This is my least favourite garden. Hopefully that changes as we change it!

My garden in July 2013

The garden is doing very well. All of my lettuce came in strong and my spinach has already bolted. I am going to pull it out and plant new seeds today.

My tomato plants are huge!! I may have planted them too close together in an effort to maximize the space I have. I hope they get enough air flow between and under them. So far they seem good and healthy with lots of little green tomatoes starting to grow.

My corn is getting taller already in the raised garden by July than they every got by fall last year. So this is definitely a better location for them.

My potatoes came up good and are blossoming. I hilled them some the other day.


I have been enjoying the thinning out process of my beets these past weeks. Love the beet tops steamed for lunch! They are getting bigger and healthier than last year as well. I hilled them a little bit as well.

My apple tree is doing ok but less apples than I had hoped. With the harsh cut back we did to it, I am pleased with having any though. The tree is healthy too.

The Cherry tree had some cherries too. They were bright red but very bitter still. I was leaving them on for a bit to see if they sweeten up. Then they disappeared! :S I'm pretty sure it was the squirrels though because when I went out to check them, there was a squirrel staring at me and standing on the fence right behind the tree... :S Any suggestions?

My herb garden needs to be weeded but i am unsure what the herbs look like as they grow up so other than the obvious ones, I am unsure what to weed. I am not too worried about the garden though as it is kind of an experiment this year. I plan to leave them to go to seed and see what comes up next year.

My Elephant ear from last year. It did well last year and then one night last fall it was too cold for it so it froze and died back. I kept it in the house and it grew back during the winter. Then when I moved it outside this spring, it was really windy one day and it wilted and those leaves slowly fell off and now it is coming back thicker!

The other two pots are avocado seeds I started in the house in a clear glass folded in wet paper towel. We will see if they do anything.

2013 Garden Plans!

Yay! I LOVE SPRING!!! This year I will have to divide my time between my garden and training my horse though. "I think i can, I think I can, I think I can"

So I added some peat moss and more garden dirt to all the gardens. Here are my before anything grows pictures with the added peat moss/dirt.

Raised Garden that we built last summer/fall with the dirt and peat moss filling it up

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My Garlic Chives and Green Onions that I left last fall and coming strong!

More Green Onions and My arc of Parsley are doing well!

My awesome cousin, who is also an arborist, came and trimmed up all our trees. They are looking good!

My Lilac Tree in the corner looks so clean and our Cherry Tree! :D

The Cherry Tree has LOTS of blossoms so it should have LOTS of Cherries! 

Here is my apple tree that was over grown by the other ornamental apple tree it had been grafted on to originally. Here it is cleaned up and cut back so only the fruiting apples will grown this year. It was pretty drastic though so hopefully we still get some apples.

He cleaned up all the dead wood that was at the top of our poplars. Looks much healthier.

Our Mountain Ash (I think...) trimmed up high so hopefully wont droop so low this year.

I have decided to add these to the front of the house.

All Shade varieties since it is pretty shady in front! I have never had lily of the valley or astilbes before. Hope they grow well!

Here is a before picture of the front... pretty unsightly!

I planted all herbs in this west garden this year. I did random scatter in clumps style instead of any organized rows. Hope they grow!

My unorthodox way of remembering what is where. I didn't want to put little signs. I find they just turn into cluttery  garbage... So pretend the desk is the garden. haha!

I also am planting strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. I do plan on doing a plum tree and maybe raspberries next year... I hope I can handle all the bees... :S

I will add a picture of them planted too.

BTW my clematis are coming up and I am excited to see how beautiful they get this summer! Yippee!


Oh and here is a picture of my horse. Just cuz I am excited about him. His name is "My Inner Ninja" and yes, he does come with a theme song. Lol. We call him Ninja for short. :D Hes a 3 year old Arabian. Acts like a big sweet puppy, follows me around everywhere. Natural Horesmanship techniques. Doing a mixture of Parelli, Clinton Anderson, Cody McArthur and Scott Downs techniques. (The last two are also a mixture of Parelli and Clinton Anderson techniques along with others). It is going well!