Last week, I wrote a column on moles and recommended how to help you manage moles in your gardens.
Moles and voles are not even in the same family.
Voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus, or meadow voles, are voracious vegetarians and may eat up to 100% of their body weight daily: carrots, beets, seeds, berries, bark on young trees, and other root crops.
One of the unusual pieces of evidence that voles leave is a half munched carrot, or only carrot leaves remain.
Collapsed plants point to root damage or missing root systems, revealing that voles have been eating your vegetables.
These voles do not hibernate and are active year-round. If you see movement in your yard during the winter, it could be this vole eating some of your plants. Just like their cousins, mice and voles breed all year long.
Our voracious little voles may produce five litters of six offspring during a single year.
These tiny creatures live from 16 months to two years. Every three to five years, the population reaches peak levels.
If you find voles in your garden, I recommend doing your best to evict them.
Meadow voles are between six and eight inches long at maturity. The fur on these tiny creatures is solid gray or brown. Their underside is a lighter color.
If you look at their snouts, voles’ snouts are shorter than moles’ snouts, ears are small and flat compared to other mice. Voles’ tails are shorter than their body length, and voles’ paws are not as distinguishable as moles’ paws.
You will find these vegetarians close to buildings but not inside the house.
Voles are constantly on alert for predators; therefore, cover is important. Voles avoid open areas, which is why so much of their damage occurs under the cover of deep snow.
Reduce the height and density of ground-level covers like vinca or myrtle. Mow your lawn short for the last mowing in the fall. Wood piles and other debris are good cover for voles.
Removing grass and other vegetation close to the bases of trees, especially new tree plantings, will help prevent voles from gnawing on the bark.
Areas that have recently seen vole damage should not have bird feeders. Voles supplement their normal diet with bird feed.
If you suspect vole damage in your new trees, use an exclusion material to help solve the problem. I have gone to the hardware store in the past and purchased some ¼-inch mesh hardware fencing and rolled the wire into a six-inch cylinder.
I buried this cylinder three to six inches below the ground to help prevent voles from burrowing underneath the fence.
Another technique to ward off the voles is a “vole moat,” a small trench six inches deep around the area to be preserved and filled with pea gravel.
If you install this same ¼-inch material around your garden six to ten inches deep, you will also exclude your garden from their diet. Fabric Grow Bags, raised beds, plastic buckets, and laundry baskets can be used to grow your vegetables and will keep your vegetables from becoming a part of a vole’s diet.
From my experience, I have used castor bean plantings around my gardens to repel both moles and voles. Castor oil and capsicum poured or sprayed over vole holes or paths can be another way of telling the voles that you don’t want them in your yard.
This solution needs to be reapplied. Sonic spikes placed around your yard will also repel voles. Garlic, onions, chives, giant onions, or leeks planted in different locations will be a sign for the voles not to take up residence.
Voles dislike all members of the Allium family.
Catch-and-release traps can be an effective way to remove these animals from your yard. Food scraps such as apples, peanut butter, or oatmeal can be suitable bait. Place the traps near exit holes where voles have been digging their runways in your garden.
The traps will be most effective in the fall and late winter.
Cats and dogs can be excellent managers of voles and moles. One of the disgusting things our cats do regularly is make offerings of the quarry they dispatch.
I have seen both voles and moles in their offerings to us. Let’s not forget foxes, coyotes, hawks, owls, bobcats, and snakes include voles in their diets.
We need to work with nature, as compared to poisoning it.
I hope you have a great stroll through your garden this week. If you see any challenges in your yard, let me know at ericlarson546@yahoo.com.
I shall do what I can to help.