Chicken wire sounds perfect. I'm not sure the peanuts did any damage at all but it scared the hell of of me everyday to see my soil moved all around. My real favorite is watching them chirp at me up in the trees for tending my garden. I guess I was lucky, they never came back and dug them out. That would have been a problem. I've also lost a few plants years ago to volls. From the bottom up, nothing left but a hole in the ground. Luckily we've had a fox den on the property for the last 6 or 7 years. They help with critter control substantially.