Red ants

Does anyone have any natural remedies to repel the pesky red ants? Of course..I haven't seen any in the cold weather, the sun comes out...and there they are! They invade a lot of my veg patch and I'll like a tried and tested plan to evict them

 

@Emily Jones
I get them in the grass and the greenhouse not really in the veg plot. You could try regular cultivation so that they can't get comfie. Water regularly; they don't like being damp.
Or you could look here Nemasys No Ants The Natural, Organic Way To Control Ants
However how much of a problem are they? They eat a lot of pests, they are not vegetarian.
The only problem I had with them was a nest in the base of a gooseberry bush causing the bush to be too dry; so I dug the lot up and replanted the gooseberry bush in fresh soil and all was well.

 

I have not any ants in my veg but I had a ants nest in my grass quite a big one i used quite a few things to no avail but something's i couldn't use as I have a cat but I read white vinegar with water deteters them so as it would not hurt the cat I decided to have a go so I filled a bottle with a small amount of white vinegar and topped up up with water and sqirted it on the grass and neat in the yard i did this for 3 days and on the 5 day they were gone it doesn't kill them they go somewhere else cause they hate the smell so now every so often I spray some white vinegar ants almost nil
Twas at a loss what to us

 

First I would suggest you watch them and look where they are going. Once you found their nest you can either make them wet (with limited success), dig them up and destroy their nest (hopefully they will wander away) or kill them.

To kill them you can use really strong coffee or even better tobacco soaked in hot water. The caffeine/nicotine will reliably kill them (that's the point of the stuff in the plants themselves).

But I personally would just let them be. The ants don't do much to the crops but are pretty busy eating all the other pests. Once a black ant colony decided to turn my newly planted cherry tree into a lice-farm. I wasn't very happy about it, but after one winter the problem solved itself.
So if they don't wander into your kitchen and stay in the veggie plot I would ignore them.

 

Thanks for all the advice! I've never really thought about them eating other pests so it's given me food for thought. Maybe I should sit back and see what happens. Last year I had a problem with ants and black fly with my runner beans, so I see them now and think...not again Though thinking of it...this was the only pest problem I had last year @Janet mahay interesting tip with the white vinegar, will definitely keep this in mind. @shiney I had definitely had a few nips last year