voles and sweet potatoes

[jmthomas]

I asked this also under vegetable gardening, but any ideas how to organically prevent voles and moles from eating my sweet potatos from undermeath?
(Visit my garden blog at http://www.cvog.blogspot.com)

[gerrycoggin]

The damage to your sweet potatoes would not be from moles as they are carivores. One method to exclude voles from your sweet potato patch, would be to use one quarter inch or less wire mesh at least 12 inches above the ground and buried six to 10 inches deep. To catch voles, use a snap-back trap baited with apples. The best time to do this is in October & November.Utilization of a castor bean based prduct like Bonide Molemax (also for use in repelling voles) ,which is avaiable in spray or granular forms, can be effective.

[jmthomas]

Excellent-thanks! I will "snap" to it! Do the traps needs to be in the tunnel or just outside?
jt

[Boeveroger]

Voles can be caught by a simple mouse trap placed under a box or a five gallon pail out side the runway near a hole. Bait with a piece of apple. Make certain no light reaches the mouse trap. Place a heavy brick or stone on the pail. I caught over 50 voles one weekend about one every hour. Check your trap often.
Another method of repelling voles is to mix 4 oz.castor oil( purchase on the web at half the price of drug store) with 3 oz Ivory dish soap and 7 oz of water. Now you have 14 oz of solution. Add two oz. of this concentrate with one gallon of water and spray, then water in good. It takes time and water to get the oil to penetrate the soil to the depth where the voles will tunnel. The 14 oz of concentrate when diluted should cover 5000 square feet.

[jmthomas]

Thanks for the trap idea- I will try that. I have tried the castor oil and soap solution, not to great effect (yet). Caging the potatoes seems to have worked for both sweet and white potatoes! Hooray! Though I guess it is a but much to do for each season. I have both moles and voles- my dog has caught some moles, yet something is still eating some of the carrots. I am also using a sound emitting mole "chaser." I've read it is somewhat effective for moles, but for voles, not so much. There does seem to be less tunneling in that garden area (I have three vegetable garden areas), but is it the chaser or the dog???