What's doing this to my leeks??

[kathyd]

Can anyone tell me what's attacking my leeks please? Whatever it is it's eating the roots and half the bulb/white bit, and leaving the rest to topple over... Thx.

[mothhawk]

Welsh mice?

[Aberdeenplotter]

well it's clearly eaten and not white rot which affects leeks as well as onions. Any signs of foot/paw prints?

[veggiechicken]

Looks like those ducks or chooks to me

[kathyd]

Welsh mice eh? I'll blame VC for that then . The chooks haven't been in the veggie patch recently VC, so can't be them.. and don't have ducks yet (but work's finally starting on the pond next week, yay!). Can't see any paw or footprints AP, but there are molehills around - do moles eat leeks?? Weird thing is, nothing seems to have been digging down to get at them, so presumably it's something under the soil? Really big slugs with teeth maybe? Argh!

[veggiechicken]

Sounds like I need to resurrect thisfor you kathy http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ead_66183.html
Looks like gnaw marks on your leeks! Is it below ground as well as above - that is, does the soil around it appear to have been moved at all?

[bearded bloke]

Looks like those ducks or chooks to me

Stop being silly VC,them's only picutres of Chooks & Quacks on a Plaice mat & we all know that Plaice eat plancton NOT leeks

[veggiechicken]

Thaks goodness you came along them BB - I thought I was up for a ducking in the pond

[Aberdeenplotter]

a photo in situ would be helpful. Although we think leeks may be unpalatable raw, animals will eat anything if they are hungry. Cattle are often fed on raw potatoes but to start with, they will hardly eat them.. However, once theyy "are on to the taste" they scoff them up like there is no tomorrow. That may well be the case with your leeks. It could be rats but I think the gnaw marks are too big for mice.

You have poultry and where there is poultry there is a probability there willl be rats. However, there are rats where there is poultry because there is a free and available source of food i.e. the grain/pellets/mash you feed to the poultry. The chooks maybe simply aren't leaving the rodents enough to subsist on and they have developed a taste for your leeks. It may be that simple.

[Aberdeenplotter]

p.s.mice love onions and will eat the inside out leaving only the root plate and the outer skin

[veggiechicken]

I know its a non-sequiteur but my dogs are very partial to a raw leek - they eat it like a bone!

[Nicos]

I would suggest voles ( field mice)

They munched their way through all our tulips last year...looked much the same!

[PyreneesPlot]

Yep, voles.
They use the mole runs to access the leeks and then eat from the bottom up. I lost loads the year before last but found if I left the wilted one in place (rather than chucking it onto the compost heap in fury) they usually ate most of it before starting on the next one. Sometimes you could sit and watch it disappear down the hole.
Lost all our tulips, too, Nicos.
I now have cats and no voles. Still got the mole, mind.

[roitelet]

Yes definately voles (campagnol) had my parsnips last year. The sonar mole deterants worked.

[kathyd]

There's no end to it is there, lol! Now I'm 'retired' and plan to work out the rest of my active life gardening, I'd assumed life would be peaceful, calm, tranquil and relaxing, and I could spend my days doing a bit of gentle pruning, plucking lucious and bountiful harvests and cooking scrumptious healthy meals, after daintily snipping roses from the garden to carry back to the cottage in one of those pretty wicker baskets like in To the Manor Born, wearing the obligatory aging hippy long flowery dress of course .... but so far I've never worked harder in all my life, and all to hang desperately onto a couple of blown sprouts and a bed of vole-ravaged leeks! And sadly, I'm loving every minute of it...

We've recently acquired a couple of kittens (well, THEY acquired US to be more precise), but they're still at the reaping havoc stage rather than the useful contribution to my sanity stage, so it'll be some time before they're on vole patrol I think. Although they did bring in a couple of baby shrews the other day, which I had to take off them amidst much fierce growling and baleful looks, so maybe all is not lost.

I used children's windmills for mole deterrents and they also worked, until the wind blew them away... did I read somewhere that plastic bottles on sticks are quite good too?