Monday, April 20, 2009

In Memory of My Garden

Remember the nasty voles that moved from my neighbors yard into mine? Well, turns out they are still wrecking havoc in my neighbors yard and they have destroyed one of my garden beds. I finally managed to get outside to do some weeding (like 1/100th of what needs to be done) the other day and as I was pulling out the dead vegetation, I found this:


Those used to be lilies - lots and lots of lilies. These bulbs below used to be tulips and other stuff I can't really remember.


They have even eaten the bark off the flowering bushes! I want them all dead. Not deterred, scared away or moving into someone else's yard. I. want. them. dead.

I have some to terms with the rabbits. They nibble a good 50% of my bulbs as they come up, and I just plant more. The difference between the rabbits is this: the tulip the rabbit nibbles, could catch a break and come up next year. The tulip the vole gets to is gone - it eats the whole bulb.

So how do I accomplish my mission to kill the vile vole rodents? We already have rodent traps under the bay window in the front of the house and under the deck in the back. They are the kind where the little vermin go in, eat some poison, then go die somewhere else. We actually found a dead vole in the backyard on Thursday morning, but I was too busy cleaning up vomit on my carpet to properly celebrate.

The two poison stations are not cutting it so do any of you have any suggestions. And no, we cannot get a cat. I am very allergic.

5 comments:

  1. My dad got one with a pitchfork once:)

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  2. The Rodinator Pro. The local news just did a piece on how effective this tool is for controlling out-of-control squirrel population growth. See if you can rent one.

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  3. This is the Dakota County Extension homepage link they may be a resource for ridding your garden of those pesky critters.

    http://www.extension.umn.edu/county/template/index.aspx?countyID=19

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  4. Oh my goodness, that would be awful. I thought my cockroaches were bad!

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  5. What the heck are voles? We have moles, and they come around because there are grubs in the ground so we treat the grubs and then don't have mole problems, except of course now that the new neighbor has dogs (and we didn't treat for grubs last year) the moles have been chased back to our property. John treated the grass yesterday, so hopefully!!! No issues this year. We've found some moles dead in the pond a few times... Maybe voles would be the same?? Put a pond in with a waterfall like ours and see what happens. Sorry I couldn't be more help. Oooh, could you get a dog? I know you can't get a cat, but do you want to borrow a few? I'm lending them out!

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