I have a pretty established compost. For years I just put leaves and weeds in it. (Occassionally putting coffee grinds) but now I'm trying to add food like banana peels and other non-cooked vegetables. How do I keep the compost from attracting ants?

In most cases if your composting process is always a moist, hot active aerobic pile, the frequent weekly movements in the pile, and hot temperatures, will run the ant pests out of your pile. Once the compost is mature and homogeneous, usually they will move on anyway.

A little dry molasses, citrus oil, or mild natural soapy water mixtures (used in moderation and small amounts of course), are other safe natural, biodegradable ways to rid the pests out of the compost, without poisoning the biomass of organic matter.

Since ants are really beneficial, you really don't have to do anything but wait, and let them go away eventually on your own, while your compost breaks downs and cooks.

Happy Gardening!

You didn't say if they were Fire Ants or just ants,I had Fire Ants in mine last year and I just poured in 2 boxes of Grits,I turned the pile and poured 'em in where I saw most of them and in about 2 weeks later when I turned it again they were gone. A box of grits runs abot $2 ea.

I don't worry about ants of any kind because they are decomposing my pile. Any decomposing critters are welcome including cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies, grub worms, etc.

Today some sustainable farmers are experimenting with using pesticidal teas made from aspartame (i.e. Nutra-Sweet) and club soda for killing fire ants and killing ant queens in colonies.