eeek mice!!!
I need your help.
I think I have mice in my garden and poor old (I emphasize old here) Bumble Bee is clearly not up to the job. Actually she’s such a wimp I’m wondering if this is the reason she will only go into the garden if I’m there to hold her hand…
During our glorious spring weather I’ve been digging, weeding, planting and replanting. I have three big sloping flower beds and they are riddled with burrows. And I mean riddled. My garden is like an Emmental cheese, which I would find kind of cute, if it wasn’t so annoying.
Last week I planted some nice new plants and now I notice that every morning when I make my rounds of the garden another one is gone. Some have just disappeared without a trace – and before you mention slugs, these plants were big and surrounded by slug pellets – and others have had whole stems just nibbled right through. No wonder the tulips on the whole failed to show this year! Somebody was eating tulip bulb stew all winter.
I’m not a happy camper.
Not one bit.
And I’m also completely flummoxed about what to do. I’ve been fairly aggressive about breaking the tunnels and filling them in, but there are clearly little animals sitting somewhere in nuclear bunkers laughing their little socks off at me. I would estimate my success rate as nil, nyet, nichts, nul, pas du tout. A big fat failure caused – I assume – by some big fat mice.
I can’t get a new cat, because that would make Bumble Bee unhappy.
So what should I do?
Help!
Helen
May 6th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
If there are tunnels maybe it’s moles. Either way, I really don’t know the answer. Sorry! My mother has mole runs all over her yard & they drive her nuts. She stabs up & down the furrows with a pitchfork trying to spear the little buggers. Pretty gruesome but so far she hasn’t caught any. There are some pretty hideous mole traps available. Good luck!
May 6th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Rabbits perhaps? Like Jane I `m clueless when it comes to pests…especially smally furry ones like mice. They totally freak me out and I have to leave anywhere they are inhabiting. Ughh. Gives me the shivers. Sorry to hear about your plants being eaten and hope you sort out the problem soon.
May 6th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
The only luck we’ve had with pests is to call in a pro. It’s not only a matter of getting rid of the ones you’ve got. You also have to keep their friends from moving in once you get rid of your current visitors. Maybe once you figure out what you’ve got, you’ll know what to plant that they don’t like.
May 6th, 2011 at 3:07 pm
we keep bait traps for mice and rats around the garden. Once the tomatoes are formed and starting to ripen I wrap them in aluminum foil…my own idea, and the little pests can’t eat them. Other than that, I don’t know what to do. But the ground full of holes sounds more like moles or rabbits. Good luck.
May 6th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Rabbits aren’t very likely where we live, and moles tend not to do this. We had this exact same problem (incl. losing something like 1000 special tulips we’d invested in and brought back from England…!) and had to grin and bear it and plant something else. I think they pull the young plants down and into their channels/runs, which is why they disappeared. I was told it was voles or shrews, actually, rather than mice – all very Wind in the Willows. Our locality means you probably have to live with it, much like you will never have a proper lawn, only a manicured field…!! We live too close to countryside ;))
You could always try hair trimmings, which are supposed to send them scurrying off :O
May 7th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
I can sympathize – some of my crops regularly get taken by rabbits – I have actually seen them sitting in the patch very boldly daring me to chase them away. Unfortunately I cannot offer a solution. When we had a squirrel problem my husband called an exterminator who emptied (and released elsewhere) a nest but told us that it was a pointless exercise as their place would just be taken by others.
I’m off to do some more weeding – I’m sure that all of the weeds I pulled last week have returned – ah the joys of gardening !!!!!!
May 10th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Our lawn has been wrecked by shrew tunnels. The cats and Nessie do their bit but there are too many. We need a good, heavy rainshower which floods the tunnels and keeps numbers down. Not nice, but they are a real pest.