ants colonising up my fruit bushes.

HELP!!!
I have 2 currant bushes in pots in the garden, I do have an ant problem generally in my garen (dig up nests all the time when putting bedding plants in.) mostly I leave them to it, but have been thinking about  action as they really are taking over. (nematoads for ants sound good to me!)

Anyway back to the currants, at the base of the stems on both plants the ants have taken loads of compost up the stem and coated it in the compost , it is crawling with ants, I knocked some of the soil off and saw a million greenfly, now I remember us all talking about ants using them as cows etc. but what the heck do I do with this lot?? I tried blasting with the hose but it has all reappeared, I tried  strong tea after blasting, but it has come back.... any other ideas before I resort to chemicals!!


Thanks

get a plastic tub with a lid, put load of little airholes in the lid

now, go for a long walk down country lanes, beside rivers etc, and collect as many ladybirds and their larvae that you can find, fill the tub with em!

then quickly get them home and release them all over the fruit bushes, to them it will be like being released from jail straight into an all you can eat buffet

then invest in some ladybug boxes for them to over winter in, and install these near the fruit bushes and anywhere else where aphids are a problem, so the bugs stay all year

Sounds like you'll also need to treat the pots themselves like trees. Wrap some cloth strip tightly around the whole pot, overlapping the ends and pin them together. Don't knot! Then smear a thick layer of petroleum jelly over the whole cloth area. Or, if you can get it, use Tanglefoot. This will catch the ants before they can get into the pot soil or bush. It doesn't help existing ants, which I imagine simply fall back into the dirt when you hose them down, but it will greatly reduce others joining in. As for the bush itself, you might need to pull the whole thing out of the pot, turn it upside down and hose it down well. Also, inspect the soil ball to see if they're nesting in there. If so, then you might need to start with fresh plants and soil, but use the grease band technique once they're potted. If you do replace the bushes, I'd burn the old simply to kill all the greenfly and ants.