A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 ants in the compost pile.........

I've bout gone through my old compost pile& will soon be back composting in THAT spot.My CURRENT composting post has not behaved the same as my others.I have ants in the pile& they are kinda basically at one end of the pile.I can't blame the fish guts as I've not added any recently.

Are the ants a problem?besides for when turning(they scram up up my pitchfork)

Usually if I turn the compost pile regularly they go find somewhere else to have a home. They don't like being disturbed. And I disturb the heck out of them lol.

I particularly don't like ants in my
compost, *mine is usually moist and they
don't like it*
but I've had them in my mulch pile..
and when I moved the mulch pile they came
with it and started a new home there..
I like ants, but not directly in my garden beds..

I would either leave the pile to the ants...
orrrrrrrrrrrr make it so moist they don't want to be there maybe????????????

Well.I bet its moist right now.We got 6 inches of rain yeaterday.It poured like for an hour...no satilite signal it rained so hard.Made me think of tropical storm Allison in 2000.We we're also 114 yesterday but did drop to 110 for a few hours& I managed to get stung& i'm allergic so that was a ER trip.Left side of face is still swelled.My yard don't like me this month.least the shot is helping with the rest of the posion sumac thats still clearing up.
Back to the ants.When I do turn the pile.ants& all.....they come back to same spot. I guess I can remove what I got then leave where they are at.I'll ponder it while in my haze today.I figured ant kill would be bad for pile.

Tha'ts my personal thoughts on it...
When I moved the mulch and new the ants where there, I regreted it...

Leave it for them and maybe they'll only stay there..