Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi all
This is my 1st time posting and I hope someone can help or advise. Having a severe back problem my husband made raised beds for my veg growing. These beds are next to the neighbours field and our garden is higher than this field, meaning there is a bank behind the beds. Whatever it is getting under the beds is creating havoc. Holes are in the beds everywhere and the soil is lifted and fluffed so much creating air pockets everywhere. Seedlings up rooted, plants looking very poorly. Have put traps and bait down to no avail. I don't know what to do :'(
Just to add...my husband has thought of filling the bottom of the bed with gravel to stop them burrowing under??? Would this work?

Bank Voles !

I hold the national collection (involuntarilly)

Your lovely raised beds are perfect BV hotels (much better than a common field!)

Gravel won't help. They will either move it or simply climb to the surface of the bed and burrow down into the beautifuly comfy home you have created for them. If you concrete the boards in it may stop them 'scouting' the edges of the bed and systematically emptying them of soil, if the sub soil is compacted enough. I've heard that if you cover your RBs with stapled plastic sheet, it will prevent them climbing but I'm sceptical

Have you seen them ? They're so cute... sorry that's not helping is it !

IMHO they don't readily take from traps. Bait boxes may work early in the season, but as soon as there are alternative food sources they ignore them. Ever seen a 'ickle bank vole in the throws of a warfarin stupor... It's so horrid... not to mention the possible effects to animals higher up the food chain.

Sorry.. that really isn't helping !

Physical barriers will make your Vole Hotel less hospitable. Notice how they tunnel around established plants. Start seed off in a vole proof seed bed or in large pots (about six inches tall, with no nearby launch pads early in the season) and transplant when stronger.

Remeber that they live in grassland and generally won't eat your plants. They've moved in because of your lovely soil... not for food (tho they love Aquilegias in spring!)

Tamp down and water their tunnels to stop plants capsizing. That brings me to another point mentioned by our council pest bloke... remove all sources of drinking water for them in spring.

It will get better as your beds settle but, your proximity to a field suggest that you may have to make friends at some point.

Good luck

I've never seen a vole.What do they look like?

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The greatness comes not when things go always good for you,but the greatness comes when you are really tested,when you take,some knocks,some disappointments;because only if youv'e been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

voles are soooooo cute, I have them in my garden and I hated them too - that was until I caught one(the first time i'd seen one). I can't bear to hurt them so I just live with them

I think I've seem some people placing used plastic containers on the ends of sticks that have been poked down into the ground. The vibrations caused by the containers blowing in the wind are supposed to scare them away. Also, if it is moles, maybe you can try growing the castor bean plant, there's something in the roots that the moles don't like.
At first I thought we had voles in the yard because there were roadways dug up all over and I only saw one of the classic volcano type burrows. Moles actually trap hordes of earthworms in underground chambers, by paralyzing them. It's quite fascinating, really. My dog dug up a mole right out of the yard, it was big and furry, it didn't look like such a large thing could have come out of the tiny tunnel. The claws were huge!

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