When Life Gives You Plastic...

Make repurposed garden tools! 

In an effort to go zero-waste in 2020, my partner and I kept a drawer full of all of our old desechos. We kept plastic bags and packaging, cardboard mac-n-cheese boxes, and too many sardine cans. Since we were living close to the main highway in town, we also scavenged plastic bottles from the roadside in an effort to clean up the neighborhood and simultaneously enhance our gardening efforts. We were both fairly new to gardening, but we agreed on one major principle: no chemicals or pesticides. 

Cucumber, Sweet Pepper, Corn, and Wild Turmeric Plants in our Garden

Very early into our gardening career, we realized we had a bit of a problem with the leafcutter ants. And after a lot of digging - both literal and investigative - we discovered that beneath our garden existed three separate leafcutter ant colonies. Leafcutters are a very large species of ant, endemic to South and Central America. The leafcutter ants, or hormiga arriera, do exactly what the name suggests. They march around in large armies, cutting chunks of leaves off of plants to take back to their colony. In the jungle, their work is hardly noticeable amongst the thick canopy, but in our humble garden the affect was devastating. When they found a plant they liked, they'd take bits and pieces, sending one ant after another, until the poor seedling was nothing but a skeleton of its former self.

The Queen Ant Coming out of one of the Colonies under our Garden

In accordance with our no-chemicals policy, we made a natural repellant spray composed of onions, garlic, lemon, and spicy chili peppers. This seemed to deter the ants for a while, but then came rainy season here in Panama and the repellent washed away almost immediately after each application. After some experimenting and many sleepless nights, my partner Yeferson came up with a plan that proved to be successful. He invented various designs, all involving plastic bottles of some sort, which created obstacles between the ants and the plants - Ninja Warrior-style. Below you can see some pictures some of these designs, which are based on two simple theories: create a physically challenging obstacle that is not worth the time of an ant on a tight schedule; and/or disrupt the scent trail left by worker ants as a mapping network for the other leafcutters.

Method 1: Cut off the base of a plastic bottle. Fill it with a shallow moat of water. This is ideal for large plants that have a bare stem at the base, but a bushy or leafy top, like bell peppers or tomatoes.

Method 2: After the bottom has been cut off, put the the remaining part of the bottle face down over the plant, with the bottleneck around the base of the plant. This works best for long, thin plants, like herbs, vines, or small seedlings.

Method 3: Cut a bottle in half and close the top off with a net or filter. This allows sunlight and rain to enter, but keeps the insects out. This method is for seedlings that have just sprouted because they are the smallest and most vulnerable. It provides them with 360 degrees of protection, but the cover is small, so it can only be used for the first few weeks of the plant's life.

The following images show some of the other uses we've found in our garden for repurposed materials:

Trellis made of various cardboard and plastic frames.

Recycled planters and seed beds.

Birdhouse made entirely of cardboard.

Window screen made of painted cardboard and mesh material from old gym pants (also featuring our compost bin).

Drawer of deshechos.

Yeferson, the engineer behind the ant obstacles.

A note on leafcutter ants: They do not eat the leaves. "They cultivate their fungal gardens by providing them with freshly cut leaves, protecting them from pests and molds, and clearing them of decayed material and garbage." (Ada Mcvean B.sc., McGill).

Thanks for reading this far! Leave a comment below and tell me about your favorite way to reuse materials at home. 😊

(May 31, 2021) Update: After moving houses and starting over with our garden, we found the best defense against the leafcutter ants is to leave most of the native vegetation in place when starting a garden. The ants are much more likely to attack your seedlings if they're the only plants on site.