I recently had an invasion of tiny black ants in my kitchen. My counter tops are black, so they were hard to see. Even though my sink was clean, for some reason they were flocking there. I hate using chemical sprays around the kitchen. I knew peppermint essential oil is an effective repellant, but I was out.
I had some lemongrass oil handy so I decided to try it. I added a few drops to a dampened sponge and wiped around the sink and counter top. The ants disappeared overnight! Plus I had the added benefit of my kitchen smelling of lemongrass.
My garden guru fiance’ advised my squash plants were being attacked by aphids because the leaves were becoming mottled and yellow with powdery spots. The give away was that ants were running all over the plants. Ants harvest the “honeydew” aphids secrete from sucking the plants juices. I did a little on line research looking for something to kill aphids on my squash plants. I found a simple formula using household ingredients and water. I mixed up a spray bottle of liquid soap, cooking oil and as an experiment a few drops of lemongrass essential oil. I sprayed the plants and all around the pots. I could not believe my eyes! The ants died almost instantaneously!
Lemongrass is now my new ant control.
May 15th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
I’m glad you found a solution. I always relied on harsh chemicals (which I hate to use) to rid ants, but will try the lemongrass in the future. I’d be interested in more details on the “formula” for aphids. Hopefully I won’t need it, but you never know in Florida. Cheers!
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:10 am
Hi Michele, thanks for stopping by and leaving me a message on my blog. I’m so grateful I got to see this post. We have awful ant problems in the bathroom and the kitchen. It seems like our town (Ojai, CA) is built on top of a huge ant-hill. I have both peppermint & lemongrass so I will try one of those and see which one works. Thank you soooooo much for this awesome post!!
May 22nd, 2010 at 7:58 am
Hi Cecilia! Thanks for stopping in and commenting on my post. Maybe you can do a combo of the peppermint & the lemongrass. Not sure how that would smell, but definitely better than a commercial ant spray!
March 23rd, 2011 at 11:02 pm
it is great post