The Dangers of What lies in the Ground

[Rowan TanafonStudent]

Just a word of warning for some people who are starting new gardens. One thing you have to watch out for, besides invasive plants and the usual insect enemies of your garden, are little furry creatures that can dig, tunnel and devour the vulnerable seeds and sprouts that you’ve placed in the ground. That’s a serious problem where I live, often the seeds or bulbs fail to come up, and we figure out finally that it must be the rodents. We’re coming up with strategies to combat the situation, such as raised garden beds.
Just in case there are any more poor people wondering what in the world went wrong with their beautiful plantings.

[Alana PotterStudent]

I have a cat that is a terrific mouser.  I have seen her tackle rabbits that are almost as big as she is, ad I have never had squirrels dig up my bulbs.    I do find mole tunnels in the yard as she can’t keep up with all of them but the moles do not seem to cause damage to plants that I can tell.  Voles are different story and destroy everything— I don’t have voles, I think because of the cats.   Never a mousein my country house either

[Tracie BlackmanStudent]

We’ve squirrels and rabbits galore.  This year the rabbits have eaten my yarrow and black-eyed susan.

[JoelleStudent]

We only really have rabbits–but plenty of them. Anything on their menu from my garden can be devastated quickly. Thankfully a simple roll of rabbit fence does the trick.

[Lisabeth SeverinStudent]

I have moles, voles, mice and shrews in my garden. The voles and mice LOVE the wood “raised beds” my husband made (really just wood edging about 4 inches taller than the rest of the ground). It’s like some sort of underground rodent rain shelter. And if I put out any sort of weather protection for my warmth-loving plants to extend the growing season, the rodents are in rodent heaven.

They aren’t always eating my veggies, just digging into the roots looking for worms and bugs (the moles and shrews) but it causes issues in summer as my soil is already well-draining enough. Its making some areas of the garden practically unusable except for veggies and plants with impervious roots and low water needs.

I’ve read that you need to bury hardware cloth, the small 1/4″ grid, in order to prevent rodents like voles in raised beds. There is also a sharp-edged stone that you can put in your soil with a specific product name, available if you live on the east coast. I’m sorry but I’ve forgotten the name of it. The manufacturer of this product says digging rodents don’t like the sharp texture. The product isn’t available in the Pacific Northwest.

My husband thinks we should try burying gravel as a cheaper alternative to hardware cloth. As long as its sharp-edged, it might be worth a try.

[Theresa GwiazdaStudent]

Hi Lisabeth! Sorry to hear about your gardening troubles. The first thing I would say about this situation is to definitely don’t wait to do something about it. The problem with rodents digging around the garden it that they create the perfect environment for bees to nest in the ground. I had this happen to me where I tried to plant potatoes on top the ground and just cover them up with compost and straw. When I went to harvest them there were bees where the rodents made tunnels to eat up the potatoes.

Having said all that, if you want to get rid of them permanently, you can do a mix of corn bread muffin mix, (Jiffy) and baking soda, equal parts and place it in the garden area. I bought a black box from the feed store that you’re supposed to put poison in and they go inside it, but I just put the mixture in it instead. This will kill the rodents, all except the moles. Moles are not vegetarians they are carnivores. Moles are usually present because of grubs in the ground. I don’t usually find they are too much of an issue. Once you get rid of the other rodents you may find that the moles are not as much an issue.

Hope this helps!

2 users thanked author for this post.

susan freeman, Joelle

[Teresa BreedenStudent]

Thank you for the cornbread idea.  I plan to try this plan of attack against the voles in my garden!

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