Battle of the voles

Edible and ornamental garden in the backyard

Sunday, January 19, 2024

I live in the country where deer bed down in our front yard at night, moles, voles and rabbits in the yard are common.  I have a strategy that has worked for the deer.  Moles and rabbits haven't been a big issue.  Voles on the other hand are definitely causing issues in my edible garden beds.  Here is what I have learned and my latest plan for deterrence to implement this spring.

Many people confuse vole damage for mole damage.  Voles eat the roots of plants while moles eat grubs.  They both burrow under the ground and create tunnels.  The way to tell the difference is to look for their entry hole.  If there is a mound of dirt around the entry hole, it is a mole.  If it is just a clean hole, it is a vole.  Moles also have big hands to dig their holes.  Voles look more like mice.  

I did lots of reading online for what keeps voles from digging through the edible beds and eating the roots of ornamentals and edibles.  I tried coffee grounds, but without great success.  I also moved my earthboxes that I cover with a portable greenhouse over onto the concrete for the winter this year.  Last winter, they were next to the garden beds in the yard and became a winter paradise for voles, eating most of the greens I had planted in them and keeping toasty.  There were tunnels under the earth boxes and even in the earth boxes.  When I moved some of the pots in the spring, I saw the voles scurry for cover.

It seems like my vole problem got much worse when I had to move my earth boxes onto the ground instead of being on concrete a few years ago when we started an addition on our house.  Hopefully, moving them back to concrete will bring the vole population back into balance and reduce the issue.

I do my edible gardening in my flower beds.  Voles do like mulched beds.  My beds are nice and fluffy as the mulch also attracts earth worms which till up the soil.  Plus as the mulch breaks down, it adds organic matter to our clay soil, making the soil loose.

Voles are supposed to be deterred by blood so I started using blood meal this fall on the garden beds for nitrogen instead of alfalfa meal.  I didn't notice a difference but maybe with continued use, the blood meal will seep down into the ground and be more of a deterrent.

I looked up what plants deter voles and am going to try planting those around the perimeter of my beds in the spring.  Here are the plants that are supposed to repel voles: daffodils, castor beans, alliums (chives, onions, shallots, garlic), fritillaries, snow drops, Siberian squalls, hyacinths, native camass, lenten roses, salvias (sage), thyme, Jack in the Pulpit, spearmint and trout lily.

I would not plant spearmint in a garden bed as mint is very invasive.  I was planning on planting creeping thyme varieties all around each of my beds.  For next fall, I was going to plant spring bulbs so I'll be sure to have daffodils and hyacinths in the mix.  I'll look up the rest to see where I can integrate them into the plan.

Once thing I know works is gravel.  The only place I do not have voles is in my garden beds that are covered in decorative gravel.  If plant deterrents don't work, I will look at putting a band of decorative gravel around the outside of my beds.