If they have a choice between your veggies and cat food...they'll order the cat food.

You're probably correct assuming that ants help spread the seeds - I've got extensive areas of both the European and native gingers that have spread this way. Which predominates - in my situation the native ginger has the edge. The weakness of both species is somewhat of an intolerance for hot dry conditions. This fallibility probably helps keep the Euro Ginger from being invasive over the long haul. It probably couldn't colonize the tough sites invasives usually favor.

I assume these are not fire ants. I'm not sure how ants would over-run a yard. We have thousands of them here, in season (spring-summer) they push up tiny dirt mounds near paved surfaces. If you leave food out they will eventually swarm it. They could contribute to a larger population of aphids (that they protect), so if you have an aphid problem, you may want to reduce your ant population. You may want to take measures to discourage them away from the house foundation, and entering the house.

The garden center where I bought the fuschias TOLD me to buy a 10" pot for them, so that's what I did, having never had fuschias before. A view of the top shelf of the wire shelving units, with my small hostas and heuchies. The larger one in the front is Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. The nice one on the right is Virginia Reel. Pure Heart is on the left, next to the red heuchie. Cracker Crumbs is in the double pot (inside the brown pot is an overturned plastic pot, to raise CC up to where it can be seen from the sidewalk). The variegated hosta on the left near the back of the row is Ivory Queen. The little hosta in the back which is elevated is Country Mouse. This is Zizu, looking for action at the geraniums, verbena, and bacopa. A strawberry pot of petunias, verbena, and calibrachoa. The two-toned beauty overlooking this pot is hosta Gypsy Rose. On the bottom shelf, in the green pot, is a little Rainbow's End, doing very well. This is the front window box, dripping with Cherry Star calibrachoa, yellow marigolds, Bandana Pink lantana. You can't see the several trailing vines of variegated vinca hanging down in front. This picture is the side of the balcony, featuring purple heliotrope, portulaca, Bandana Rose lantana and variegated vinca (which has red stems, so pretty). You can see a bit of Raspberry Sundae on the bottom right. It is doing much better in its fabric pot than it ever did in the ground--look at the size of those leaves! Sorry about the poor quality of the pic--it was taken through window screening of a room perpendicular to the balcony. So Ken--how is my balcony garden doing?