How to get rid of ants, naturally!

Hello Friends! I am so sorry that I am such a slacker in this whole blogging department. It seems like my life has been super-duper crazy lately and I don't have time for doing anything anymore. I have also been in a battle for my household against a very small enemy. The little, but strong ant. Seriously, it has been a battle to get rid of them. In the beginning of the summer we even resorted to *gasp* chemicals to get rid of them. That's how bad they were. The chemicals really didn't help as much as we would have liked though. So, I decided to try to do things all naturally. I would be lying if I said its so easy to do and quick, because its not. It's hard, very time consuming, and it doesn't work overnight (or over a week even). I did get rid of the little scoundrels for most of the summer, but I started to slack and we have them again. You are not going to like the first thing I say to get rid of ants. It is the easiest, yet the hardest, thing to do. Keep food off the floor and keep things clean. It is really hard to do, but that is really the first step. I thought I would show you what else I am doing now to battle these little invaders!

I will start with the newest thing I am doing. I made a "spider-b-gone" spray because spiders are another thing that is crazy in this household! It is amazing at not only killing spiders but keeping them out since they hate the smell. Want to know how I made it? Peppermint essential oil! They hate the smell of peppermint and when I sprayed it on my ants, well they all died! Winning! This is the recipe for that:

Spray bottle

15 drops Young Living Peppermint Essential Oil

Tablespoon natural dish detergent (I used lavender mint by Seventh Generation)

Water

Yep, that's the only ingredients you need. You fill it up the spray bottle almost to the neck, my spray bottle went up to 24oz so I filled it up to there.

After you put water in it then you put in the tablespoon of dish detergent and the drops of peppermint essential oil. You swish it around gently and its ready to kill some ants! A lot of people say this deters ants but I personally haven't seen that! You can also add more peppermint essential oil if 15 isn't enough.

Second thing I do is make a mix of half and half baking soda and powdered sugar. You search for where they come in and you put the mixture by them. I found out that I have cracks where they come in. 

I fill them right up with the mixture. They eat it because of the powered sugar and they bring it back to the colony. The baking soda inside of the mixture kills them and the whole colony when they bring it back! Perfect! Also a huge thing to help out would be to take some caulking and fill up any cracks you see them coming in through. 

The hardest part is not killing them. when you see them eating the sugar. They need to take that back to the colony to kill them all. If you see them away from where it is well, that's when I kill them! I spray the "spider-b-gone" right on them and it kills them all right away. Here is a picture of a massive ant killing, thanks to "spider-b-gone":

The first time I got rid of them, it took a couple weeks. I am in the middle of doing it again, but its been hard with the kiddos around! I would recommend switching out the powder/baking soda mixture every other day and making sure food stays off the floors. Also actively killing whatever ants are not eating the mixture. Also if you see the ants are not taking a liking to the dry mixture, my mom swears by putting water in hers. She says that makes all the difference. I will do it every now and again to switch it up and I put the wet mixture in bottle caps. Here is what that looks like:

This mix of things seems to be helping me get rid of my problem! If you are on the loosing side of the battle with ants and want an all natural alternative, I suggest you try it out!

Want to learn more about essential oils? Click here.