Hi...I'm new here as well as new to the whole gardening thing. I come from a long line of gardeners but i'm the first to have an organic garden.

I'm having some trouble with my zucchini plants...they stopped growing ... they aren't dead but 4 out of the 6 are just still little plants. The other two are huge and have produced many flower and zucchini already.

After speaking with the owner of my farmers market he mentioned that ants could be eating way at the roots of my zucchini plants and stunting their growth. He had some chemicals I could use to kill the ants but I don't want chemicals.

Anywho, sure enough though, when I went home I found little holes around my zucchini plants and ants coming in and out.

any ideas of how I can get rid of these little pests and get my zucchini's growing again?

I read someone's post about sprinkling aspeteme (sp?) in the form of equal around the holes or even grits?

all suggestions accepted.
thanks in advance!

I have never heard of ants being of any trouble in the garden. They help to aerate the soil as they go in and out of the soil. and there is other recent threads regarding ants which you can read below or on the next page. None have described your specific problem.

There are many, many myths around about ants and most people think of ants as pests which they can be in the wrong place. But ants are part of Ma Natures recycling machine and as long as they stay out of your house and are not much of a problem at picnics, and are not Fire Ants, they are not a problem. Sometimes, rarely, large numbers in a single nest can appear to present a problem and often the simplest means of eliminating that perceived problem is to flood the soil around the nest, get the area so wet the ants cannot stay, and they will move on, but even that is most often not necessary.
There is no good, reason to poison our planet more with broad spectrum poisons to "get rid of ants."

In doing a little research, I found that aphids may be your problem. Ants may be there to eat the honeydew produced by the aphids. Just a thought...

Here's some good information.

thanks for the replies...i'm just going to leave everything as is. If the zucchini plants grow, great. if not, then I'll hope for better luck next year.

thanks again.