Repel Ants with White Pepper or Sage

Did you know that you probably have in your pantry or kitchen a very effective—and natural—ant repellant? For many centuries, gardeners have been using the plants they grow as natural insect repellants. Garlic, larkspur, and geraniums keep away Japanese Beetles; mites won't stick around if you have garlic, chives, or onions; and tomato worms hate marigolds. The best aspect about plants that repel insects is that you can keep them inside of your home and ants will not enter. For instance, if your pet has picked up a family of mites on his nightly jaunt, set out a small dish of garlic, onion, or chives on the kitchen counter, and the mites will leave very quickly!

If you've discovered that you have an ant problem inside of your home and, despite using pesticides and insecticides, the ants keep coming, there are two things you probably have in your kitchen that you should try. Get your can of sage and your mill of white pepper, and follow these guidelines to repel ants with those two common spices:

• Grow sage in your garden. Not needing to do much more than water the plant, the very presence of the aromatic plant will keep ants away from your garden.
• Grow a small herb garden in your kitchen, including sage. The aroma of the sage will keep ants off of your kitchen counters.
• Buy fresh sage or pick a large amount from your garden, if you have any, and place it on a large baking sheet. Dry the plant in your oven on low heat for several hours, leaving the oven door propped open about an inch. The aroma of the sage will have the ants seeking the fresh outdoors.
• Buy several canisters of ground sage and ground white pepper and dump them together into a shaker jar. Shake the two spices all around the outside of your house, including the entries to the house, and ants will not come inside.
• Buy white peppercorns and place them into a short piece of pantyhose, fashioning a sachet. Place the white peppercorn sachets in kitchen cupboards, the pantry, your Lazy Susan, closets, and drawers.
• Buy ground white pepper and sprinkle it behind kitchen appliances, behind toilets, around baseboards of your home, and across doorway thresholds.

Think of other places you can place sage and white pepper inconspicuously in your home. Because white pepper and sage are not harmful to pets or children, using them as an ant repellant is an all-natural, non-toxic way to rid your home of ants quickly.