Hello fellow growers,

I hope you are protecting your pumpkins if you are receiving the rain and  cold weather like I am.  I receive some type of damage every year from rodents and have not found a full proof way.  Last year, we adopted a cat and he caused damage to my pumpkins last year and this year.  I’m not sure how many mice/voles he has eliminated, but he has left us at least 3 presents this year.  When I found out the weather was going to get bad, I placed mouse traps around my pumpkins and used some moth balls.  Wow! Did my patch smell of moth balls and it still does.  Unfortunately, I’m not sure what level of deterrent moth balls are for voles.  Luckily a little peanut butter on my mouse trap caught the first vole entering the garden and since placing the moth balls, I have not caught any field mice.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to capture/eliminate voles?  He was a fairly large one and unfortunately, it was raining so I have not uncovered my pumpkin for several days to see if he snacked on my pumpkin.

I’m looking forward to my new scale coming!

Actually, I just found a nice article here: http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/voles.asp

http://landscaping.about.com/cs/pests/a/vole_control.htm