Thanks all for the replies.
Last year they didn't touch the lettuce, not a single bite, only the peas and kale. Bunnies nibbled on some of the lettuce but generally didn't ruin any. I don't think anything killed the cukes last year except early cool weather, so after babysitting them through plant-out a few weeks early and getting them fully established I'm really annoyed that something just nibbled the stems in half 6-inches off the ground and didn't even eat anything.
I set up the caged-off area to keep the bunnies out, so was stumped last year when things started getting eaten, and then discovered the voles. That also explained why some of my hosta and other bulbs disappeared over the prior winter. But the cage was done with chicken wire, and the voles are strolling right through the holes in it (not burrowing under...so I'll either add a layer of smaller gauge fencing or some landscape fabric and see what happens.
As for poison, I'm a little wary about putting poison in my veggie garden. I will however be removing any extraneous cover close to the garden, and will be trimming the grass as tight as I can at the garden edges where they tend to run, so cats and haws will have free-reign to eat these little jerks. Normally I allow for some donations to nature, I love animals and love seeing them around, but voles being able to give birth at 33 days of age? My garden can't compete with that.
At least they seem to have chased off the shrews that I had for several years prior, eating all of the garden worms and eating every single worm in my composters.
|