How are the ants ruining your courgettes and other plants? They don't eat plant matter so what else do you have on your plants that is encouraging the ants?

i wonder if they are farming aphids for their honey dew.

That is my thought SBG

We have leaf-cutter ants here in Mexico. They can strip bougenvillia or other large plants in one night. Half of our garden is stripped(we are renting) The owners have a gardener and what ever he is using is not helping much. There are large colonies of them everywhere.
Sorry, Laripa I cannot ask him because he does not speak English and I do not speak Spanish.
The ants do not eat the leaf fragments they collect, but take them into their underground nest where they use the material to raise a fungus garden. As the fungus grows, parts of it are eaten by the ants and fed to the larvae. This fungus is their only known source of their food.
I think I prefer my deer to ants.

thank you all - yes Klahanie that is what they so the blighters - I have trouble here with much larger creatures such as wild boar and a type of goat which will strip, trample and ruin a garden in no time at all

Goats will eat anything!

Yes, goats are not selective. They are using them on Vancouver Island to clear he land.

Welcome to my type of gardening Laripa. I constantly fight the critters such as slugs, rabbits, racoons, squirrels, deers...and of course the mother nature.
What is not consumed by one is taken by others.
Can be frustrating but who is complaining :-) It is still my major hobby.