Monthly Food Forest Tours! Let's create a food forest together!

Does anyone have a problem with ants in their Food Forests? Here in our area zone 8 central Alabama, ants should be our state insect! LOL! I constantly deal with these guys! I used to have a feed/seed supplier for DE, (sadly big box store ran them out of business)  and for some reason, people around here just don't use it and there are few places to purchase, online is very expensive for very little!  Whenever I call other feed/seed places or garden centers, they act like I'm from Mars! I am an elderly lady and I have known about DE since the 70's, where have these people been? Anyway, getting back to the ants! Do you all have problems or is it just this area? Maybe years of cotton planting in this state has depleted everything but the ants? Boiling is a short term solution, they just move  to another area. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  

We have a lot of fire ants here. They used to be everywhere, mainly in the grassy areas, and seemed to thrive in poor fertility areas in our very sandy soil.

Now that I have a lot more diversity in the food forest. I've noticed about a 90% decrease in their numbers just over the last year. I think the increase in predatory bugs has helped greatly reduce their numbers. Once the soil gets a lot of organic matter in it, that also seems to discourage them.

Thanks for the encouragement Steve! I also have found a local source for my DE!

From last August, an apple tree surrounded by blueberries, a blackberry, and lots of wild plants, all thriving together!

This apple tree has a grape vine growing up it and a serviceberry friend nearby!

And this apple tree cried whee whee whee all the way home, because it had some trouble growing due to some disease susceptibility and is now getting overtaken by a giant black locust tree next door that is growing so much faster!

Hello robberflies and so long Japanese beetles.

I love to see long legged flies in the food forest!

I love these flowers, probably Persicaria pensylvanica.

This Ludwigia alternifolia was blooming last August, commonly known as bushy seedbox and rattlebox.