Natural Ant Deterrent

My parents lived in Africa and had an infestation of army ants. A local boy gave my mother some brilliant advice; put ash in a ring around the house. The ants will be tricked into thinking there is a forest fire. My mother did this in a great panick to stop the ants swarming over me as a new baby and, like magic, the ants disappeared! I have an infestation in my kitchen at the moment so plan to put ash across the threshold where they are coming in and post a note if it does the trick on English black ants.