Vole Infestation

[Wanderlust]

my outdoor garden is currently a bunch of 6x24 mounds. It's always worked great, but last year I lost one cucumber plant to voles. I set traps and killed about 5 of them. But after this lass winter the grasses and weeds took over the area, and now I'm noticing vole tunnels EVERYWHERE...

Any advice on how to get rid of these guys? My girls are almost ready to put outside, but I don't want them to get eaten up mid season. I can always rent a tractor and move all the dirt and build raised beds with hardware cloth underneath, but that's a huge task which would set my season back quite a bit.

Anybody have other ideas besides rebuilding the entire garden?

 

[Mr Bee]

Get a cat.or an owl.
Just jokin.would some humane traps not do the damage?

 

[Wanderlust]

Get a cat.or an owl.
Just jokin.would some humane traps not do the damage?

Lots of owls in the area already. It's about a 3000 square foot area that's full of tunnels. I don't think I'd catch them all.

 

[stickythumb]

I have heard Castor oil and Capsaisan (sp?) are good repellents, as for extermination or riddance of the pest I can not help. Hope you can find a solution.

 

[Mr Bee]

I supposed poisoned bait down the holes is out the question?

 

[Farmer P]

Hook a hose to your lawnmower exhaust and stuff it down a hole. I read that gophers hate fish emulsion, maybe it would repel the voles too.

 

[below frigid]

Hate those bastards. Good luck. Do whatever needs to be done. Traps, if you use vole bait just make sure you use a bait station. Voles are not good climbers like mice. 48 inch 1/2 inch mesh fence buried 8-10 inches deep around plants will work. Kind of expensive, $160 for a 100 ft roll.

 

[Wanderlust]

Fish emulsion sounds like an interesting deferent. I use a lot of stinky amendments and water in fish hydroslate, so hopefully that'll chase some off as the season progresses.
I took to building one bed with 1/4" hardware cloth underneath and man, what a pain in the ass. Wish I woulda just started the garden that way. Even using a mini skid it's just a mess trying to get that dirt moved and it feels like I'm just destroying the healthy soil ecosystem.
I might try deterrents and take a brush eater and now down and take up all the grasses and weeds in between the mounds to get rid of food and hiding places.
I figured about about 1500$ to convert the space to all 16" tall raised beds (cheap Doug fir) with hardware cloth bottoms, including a bobcat rental to move the dirt. Really not that bad, and saving a single plant from destruction will more than pay for it. But I'm getting old and tired and it would be a helluva lot less work to spend a fraction of the price on deterrents.
Shit I don't know which way to go haha

 

[Farmer P]

Sounds like a plan. It will be a lot of work but it will last for many years. I saw a guy on youtube that coats the wood with used motor oil to keep it from rotting and getting termites.

 

[Golden Zia]

My .02 is, as much as a pita as re-doing your beds will be at first, obviously it will pay back again and again with out the constant need for bandaids along the way.
Sometimes we take a step back to best move forward.

 

[Golden Zia]

I might caution against used motor oil as a water repellent.
It's sorta obvious the potential health concerns one might consider.

 

[Farmer P]

I might caution against used motor oil as a water repellent.
It's sorta obvious the potential health concerns one might consider.

I guess there might be some risk. Maybe use something else. The guy I saw grows awesome vegetable gardens in his boxes. Petroleum is basically a mix of naturally occurring organic compounds from within the earth that contain primarily hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. There are microbes that process it. My grandfather used to use dirt in the machine shop to clean up oil spills. He would put the dirt in a big bin and let it sit for a year or so then use the dirt to grow things. OSHA tried to get him and say he couldn't use dirt so he sent samples to a lab and the results were great. The city after seeing the results said you can do anything you want with that dirt. You can throw it in the trash if you want.