Ants, ants and MORE ants!!

Hi, all. We moved into our first home last July and I can't believe a year has gone by! It's been so busy but we have finally just about finished the garden! Yaay! Sorry for not posting in an age but hopefully can get stuck in again now.

Having not posted in such a long time I feel it's sort of rude to be asking advice right off the bat, but after the discovery I just made, this is the first place I thought of.

We laid lawn not so long ago and all is well there, but we ended up with four leftover rolls. I piled them up behind my veggie patch (against the shed), and kept them moist, in case any of the laid lawn failed to thrive and needed replacing. Anywho...the lawn took just fine and the spare rolls got totally forgotten and are still there weeks later.
I just went to shift them (they're a bit unsightly now that I've moved stuff that was in front of them) and suddenly - ANTS. Ants EVERYWHERE.
I am not ashamed to have let out a girly squeal and scampered back inside to post this...I just hate ants. Give me spiders, snails, bees, woodlice, earwigs - all fine....but ANTS? No.

I am now wondering...I have always been told that ants are just best left alone...I don't mind leaving the turf rolls there all that much, but are they destructive pests at all? My lovely sugarsnap pea plants have shriveled and are right next to the turf rolls...could the (infernally massive) ant nest be responsible?

I don't know why I'm so terrified of ants, but I just can't handle them on this scale - there must be literally thousands!

What would you guys do and what do you suppose the best course of action is??

(I also wanted to share a 'before' and 'after' pic...)

 

Oh dear...I don't know how this ended up in here...I intended to post it in pests, diseases and cures. Sorry!

 

I remember asking a similar question here a few years ago. I had ants in the lawns and there were lot of them. A reply was something like, tread on each nest and do it 2 or 3 days running. I was not too convinced but gave it a try and it worked very well 100%. This year I have a few coming into the conservatory so diluted Bleach is helping. I will read the other replies as I feel sure we are not on our own.