I sure do love pulling a massive, jaw-dropping sweet potato from beneath the soil.
There’s just something so invigorating and satisfying about harvesting these tubers in particular, that no other crop can rival.
However, I’ll tell you one thing I do not like:
Voles.
Filthy, thieving, over-populated voles.
The war against these tiny demons is relentless; they love to attack my potatoes and sweet potatoes, and this time around, they have decimated my crop of sweet potatoes.
What would have been dozens of sweet potatoes were destroyed- many only being 10% eaten, while a few were nothing more than a shell, simply the peel of the potato left behind.
This has been a homesteading failure, and I’d like to highlight what I’ll be doing to prevent these nasty little critters from feasting on my hard work next year.
As always, we don’t allow failure to defeat us; no, absolutely not.
Instead, we will try a variety of methods to prevent this failure next year, and we’ll plant 5x as many! I will get a bumper crop of sweet potatoes, believe me.
Next year will be my year.
I’ll have so many sweet potatoes, I’ll be crying trying to find places to store them all.
Well, that’s the goal, anyways!
Just look at what these little critters can do, across every potato in the garden:
This is enough to work up any homesteader’s feelings.
As a matter of fact, you may have drifted onto my blog because you found the exact same type of damage, and are just as upset about your lost harvest.
Trust me, I know how you feel; this wasn’t my first rendezvous with these pests.
So read on, and discover exactly what I’m going to do to stop this problem. In addition, swing on by our Facebook page and give us a “like”, and you’ll be in the loop when we harvest in the 2019 season to see what works and what doesn’t! In the mean time, this harvest post will keep your soul happy!
What’s Eating My Sweet Potatoes? Voles. That’s What.
I don’t know how it could be possible to have a worse vole problem than we already do; our poor barn cat cannot keep up with these critters in combination with the field mice; but oh, how he tries. My sweet boy tries so hard.
We will find a way to secure our harvest, and hopefully live in peace with these animals. While I wish they would find any other garden to sabotage, they are quite the cute little critters.
Therefore, we’re going to apply as many natural methods as we possibly can. The goal is to make the garden so inhospitable that the voles nest elsewhere.
Adding More Barn Cats to Stalk the Voles
Firstly, we’ll be adding additional barn cats this fall. We’ll allow them to get used to our property safely through the winter, and have them control the mice and voles that find their way into our barn. As spring approaches, they’ll be allowed outside during the daylight hours for longer periods, until they are thoroughly adjusted to the land and all hiding spots. Our barn cat simply cannot keep up with the population of rodents we have here, and he truly needs some help!
Controlling Weed Growth & Raising Sweet Potato Vines to Eliminate Cover
With the cats standing guard over the property and manning the vole trails through the yard, we’ll add another layer of protection: there will be no cover around or in the vegetable garden. Instead of allowing the vines to creep along the ground, we will train the vines up and away from the soil. This leaves any voles in the open and vulnerable, should they decide to attempt a feast. The grass around the patches will be kept very, very short, with no weeds in sight. This will help to deter a large number of voles, as they previously used the cover of straw and vines to hide and feast.
Keeping Voles Out of Raised Beds with Fencing & Hardware Cloth
For the sweet potatoes that are in a bed, we’ll add some hardware cloth on the top of the bed. This will keep the voles out from above. I found that voles were digging down at the base of each plant, rather than tunneling through the whole bed. Even with the cover, the voles didn’t “move in” to the sweet potato patch, which is a good thing. We may also use some chicken mesh on the underside of the beds, but sweet potatoes tend to dive down fairly deep. Therefore, the roots would extend well beyond the mesh placement. This may result in disfigured or stunted sweet potatoes- something we’d like to avoid if possible. Instead, fencing can be placed 12″+ into the ground around the bed, preventing the voles from digging underneath. This would be far more effective for a healthy crop.
Stopping Voles from Eating Potatoes with Height
Many people have grown accustomed to raising their sweet potato plants within buckets, totes, and pails. I can absolutely see why. Not only are you containing the roots and plants to one (or a few) nearly impenetrable raised “beds” that’ll be hard work for voles, you’re also making harvest incredibly easy! I really like this idea. I could also cover the tops of the totes with fencing, wire panels, or cheap netting in order to further deter the voles. From what I can find, voles are not fond of exposing themselves to potential predators, so they won’t stick around for long in order to access food. The vines can reach up above the fencing and netting, which allows the plant to grow perfectly well. Hindering and inconveniencing the voles is our goal, and this method will do just that.
Plants That Repel Voles in Potato Patches
In addition to making food hard to get to, it’s a good idea to place a few of the plants moles hate around the susceptible crop. Certain plants are absolutely repulsive to voles, and they will help to protect a small area around them. This reach may only be 1 to 3 feet, so we will need to plant several plants for this method to be truly effective.
Looks like I’ll have more than enough Rosemary for this county and the one next door during 2019!
Rosemary
If you plant Rosemary, the surrounding plants seem to be spared from damage. Rosemary is a perennial that requires some protection in many zones, so cloning the Rosemary plants will give us a quick explosion in plant numbers. We will also plant more Rosemary seeds over the winter, hopefully giving us some nicely sized starter plants in the spring. The voles despise the Rosemary plant, which is very aromatic. You can’t even perform a pot transplant without the strong aroma of Rosemary enveloping you; I feel fairly confident with using Rosemary as a deterrent. In addition, the Rosemary will be used to create a deterrent spray.
Daffodils
Who doesn’t love daffodils… unless you’re a vole, that is! Daffodils are pretty perennial flowers, some of the first ones to pop up in the weeks leading up to spring. Most gardeners find that the plant survives the worst of vole infestations; however, I’m not sure that a daffodil will be an effective vole repellent, but we’re going to give it our best shot. Walmart sells single daffodils in the late winter for $1 per plant; at $4, I could plant each corner of a 24″ square, and plant a sweet potato vine in the middle. Not much work, investment, or space involved! If the experiment fails, well, I’ll just have a beautiful daffodil bed, instead. I call this a win-win scenario!
Castor Bean Plant
The Castor Bean plant is highly toxic to animals and people alike. Therefore, most people don’t want to use it in their gardens with pets and children. If you do not have pets or children, or if your garden beds have restricted access (such as fencing and gates), the castor bean plant could offer a lot of protection for your beds. The voles will be sickened and eliminated by the plants if they ingest the seeds or roots; this will run them off, giving the rest of your beds a chance to rest easy. A lot of vole repellents have castor based formulas, which we’ll come back to in a little bit.
Mint Family
While Rosemary is a member of the mint family, other varieties of mint are also known to deter voles. I will be trying cat mint, cat nip, peppermint, spearmint, lemon mint, and more within my beds. These will be kept in pots, and I will sprinkle their leaves among the beds (since mint grows so aggressively). I would like to build a few experimental beds, each with a different type of mint and 2 sweet potato plants, to see if any particular mint plant will work more effectively. We have a severe vole problem here, so this type of experiment would be beneficial; it would be quite the waste of time on a property with a limited population.
Will Chickens Control Voles?
If you follow my blog regularly, then you know how much my chickens mean to me! Chickens are the Swiss army knife of the homestead. They produce meat and eggs, they provide natural pest control (ticks, for example), they hatch chicks for both replenishing the flock and selling, they clean up scraps, turn compost, control parasites within paddocks, they make great pets, there really is no shortage of tasks that these incredible birds can accomplish. Perhaps I put my chickens on a pedestal- but I’m telling you: you should, too!
As a child, I watched my pet rooster (who was lovingly loyal, and was happy to travel around the meadow in an old backpack) devour a mouse. This was something out of Jurassic Park, they way he slurped that mouse down. If you didn’t know this yet, chickens are predators. The delicious grasshopper snacks probably gave this away, but they aren’t simply insectivores. They will eat a wide variety of small prey, and love doing so. They will eat mice, voles, lizards, frogs, small snakes, and the pinkies/infants of many different species. Chickens aren’t picky- and this could be something incredible for us and our vole problem. The only issue we have is finding a way to free range our chickens safely. Our neighbors are not very polite when it comes to their dogs, or how they raise them, unfortunately.
Baits and Repellents for Voles: Ideas We’ll Be Experimenting with to Control the Voles
Now, we make our way on over to the baits and repellents. We do not want to use a poisoning method, as that could cause a variety of issues. Some of my biggest concerns would be:
- Poisons could harm the dogs or cats, if they ingest the dead or dying rodents.
- Chickens may accidentally eat poisoned bait, as one escapes every now and then.
- Snakes may eat the poisoned voles, and I don’t want to kill or discourage beneficial snakes.
- How harmful are those poisons for us, in our gardens? We don’t want poisons in our food- which may happen if a vole brings poison into the garden or dies in the garden.
I’m most concerned about the quality of life for our animals as well as our food, and I don’t want to harm the beneficial animals. Poisons can be an easy cure-all, but they can wreak havoc on the homestead ecosystem. So, let’s check out some of these friendlier options!
Hot Peppers & Capsaicin Irritate Voles
We loveeeee spicy food here- so we already have a great reason to grow hot peppers. But, what if the capsaicin that is contained within hot peppers was capable of defending the garden from those insatiable, evil little voles? We’re definitely going to find out! I needed every reason to grow white and orange Habanero, Jalapeno, Cayenne, Trinidad Scorpion, Carolina Reaper, Tobasco, Bhut Jolokia, Scotch Bonnet, Hot Paper Lantern, Wiri Wiri, and many other hot peppers. Yes, I have a list of “to-grow” peppers; and yes, I know how productive these plants can be.
What better way to use all of those excess hot peppers than to keep rodents out of the rest of the garden??? The capsaicin is quite irritating to these rodents, so it figures that they would avoid walking through it or digging in it; and will likely avoid any fruits that are covered in it. I could slice it fresh, create a spray solution, dehydrate, powder, then sprinkle it… the options are endless. I wonder what kind of effects capsaicin could have on garden soil… This will be an entirely different post, if I can find any meaningful research. You have just witnessed the conception of a potential future post. Carrying on!
Castor Oil & Sickened Voles
If voles ingest castor beans, it can kill them; as we discussed earlier in this post. However, voles are smart little rodents; they learn to avoid things that make them sick. If the idea of a Castor Bean plant makes you uncomfortable (if you have children and pets, like I do), then you can reach for the castor oil repellents. Castor oil is the same stuff that your grandmother probably used for constipation. The oil does not contain the dangerous compound ricin, which is naturally occurring within the castor beans. This makes the oil safer to use, and it makes it appropriate for use in a food garden. Of course, you must do the research yourself. We will be making a spraying mix with the castor oil, and likely combine it with the above hot peppers in a special mix that will deter more than just voles.
Mint Extracts & Oils
Remember how I mentioned repelling the voles with living plants? We’ll be using oils, dried herbs, and extracts, too. Rosemary, peppermint, tea tree, and clove oils and extracts will be at the very top of our list. Voles do not enjoy these aromatic, concentrated oils, and tend to avoid them. In addition, it may be possible that they prevent the voles from sniffing out the tasty crops that you’re trying to hide, further increasing the chances of success. I’m really not sure which is more effective (the deterrent power of the oils OR their ability to hide the scent of tasty plants), but I’m expecting a good result out of them if used en mass. The world is my oil diffuser, and the voles are my guests.
What Are We Doing to Control Over Wintering Voles? It’s Cleanup Time!
This winter, we will be doing a major overhaul on the homestead. We will be cleaning out all brush, we will be rearranging, moving and cleaning up resources (such as wood piles), and we will also be relocating our garden beds. The beds will not be left for a third year; this will sufficiently confuse the voles and move early spring food sources away from their dens. All soil will be moved to a composting zone, in an open area with no surrounding vegetation. The pile will be turned every other week, making it an area voles won’t want to inhabit. We will keep the water and food for our barn cats nearby during the day time, increasing the amount of time that the cats spend near the pile (as it will be a primary food source for the voles over winter).
I had to resort to planting sweet potatoes in a large metal double sink – two half-barrels in a welded frame that someone at some time made for some unknown purpose. The top is at kitchen countertop height, so the bottom of the sinks are several feet off the ground. Although it limits the amount I can plant, it is perfect for controlling moles, voles, gophers and armadillos that all love sweet potatoes, and the sinks’ drainage holes keep the soil well-drained. Since I can’t “rotate” my sweet potato bed, I replace the soil in the sink each year.
That’s a pretty neat little contraption though! I have some large, round tubs I’ll be trying out again, which will hopefully give us a few pounds each…. then I’m going to do one protected raised bed, and another patch that’ll be at their mercy with a variety of deterrents and changes around the bed to see if I can finally fend them off. Maybe a sacrificial crop too, towards the end of the property, where snakes can feast? The voles are our only problem, and boy are they overpopulated. I’d hate to totally lose the sweet potatoes again, because the little man loves them!