added an 8 by 16 no dig potato garden, what do you think?

[digitS']

I know that I've told this story before here: but, I once planted an area about 25' by 50' to potatoes. I just pushed the seed potatoes a little into freshly tilled ground and covered them with rain-spoiled alfalfa hay. With attention to spacing, they came up between the thick flakes of hay (it wasn't really in such bad shape) and grew well.

Towards the end of their season, I knew something was wrong.

At harvest, I discovered only 1 potato that hadn't been chewed on by the voles . No, I don't remember how far I threw that potato into the trees!



I vowed never to try that again and just collected the rain-spoiled alfalfa for my compost piles and to work into the soil.

Steve

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Oh! Steve and trunkman - please don't tell us about problems with straw . I just spent several hours spreading a 6" deep blanket of straw under my tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, pole beans, cukes, and birdhouse gourds. It has been so dry here and I'm hoping to keep some of the moisture in the ground when I haul water out there.

I had vole problems earlier this season so they might return to their dastardly ways.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Oh! Steve and trunkman - please don't tell us about problems with straw . I just spent several hours spreading a 6" deep blanket of straw under my tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, pole beans, cukes, and birdhouse gourds. It has been so dry here and I'm hoping to keep some of the moisture in the ground when I haul water out there.

I had vole problems earlier this season so they might return to their dastardly ways.

 

[trunkman]

Oh! Steve and trunkman - please don't tell us about problems with straw . I just spent several hours spreading a 6" deep blanket of straw under my tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, pole beans, cukes, and birdhouse gourds. It has been so dry here and I'm hoping to keep some of the moisture in the ground when I haul water out there.

I had vole problems earlier this season so they might return to their dastardly ways.

Don't get discouraged, it might work great for you, it wasn't all that bad for me, I still managed to can about 70 lbs of tomatoes so far with about 50 lbs to go.. it has helped keep the soil moist, plus you'll have fertile soil next year if it doesn't work out this year..

 

[digitS']

Smiles, there are other problems than voles to deal with in the garden - like flooding & drought. As you know.

With regards to vole housing, covering the ground in late July is a little different than having it covered since April. They may still get under it but I created a vole metropolis then provided all the food they could eat, in the form of potatoes. "One captive meadow vole had 17 litters during one year, totaling 83 young. A female from that first litter had 13 litters, totaling 78 young before turning 1 year old." Vole Damage, University of Nebraska

I'd also fenced the space so that my friend the coyote didn't feel welcome to show up on her vole harvesting rounds.

I have had vole burrows dug out right in the middle of the tomato patch in my current garden. The coyote was the only likely party to that since the neighbor's dachshunds had grown too old to visit during the daytime. (He has a new dachshund, however .)

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

A cat that hunts is pretty good insurance against rodents. Ours catch a ton of mice and voles and I witnessed one of the lazier males catching a gopher one afternoon this spring. Yaaa cat!!
I have a very deep loathing for gophers so I stood there and cheered him on. Unfortunately the silly cat messed around and the gopher took off, but our border collie x saved the day, caught the errant rodent and swallowed it whole!
Yaaa dog!!

 

[wifezilla]

Excellent Team Work!

 

[journey11]

I've used straw to mulch my tomatoes most years. I've not had any problems with mold or rodents, so I didn't think anything of using it on the potato patch. But it does sound like a good place for mice to live! I don't have voles here, thankfully...they sound like quite the evil garden menace! We have regular old moles, but they don't bother my garden, just dig up the lawn sometimes. But I've always heard they were after the beetle larvae in the soil, so I guess that's a lose/lose situation, huh. At any rate, I wish my neighbors would quit hauling off all the stray cats around here. I had no trouble with opossums, rats, mice, or anything as long as those barn kitties were on the job!

Sorry yours didn't turn out, Trunkman. Maybe it was the excess water? I've had that happen with an unusually rainy spring one year. One end of the garden was prone to flooding and that end didn't produce any potatoes, but the high side still did well. Your compost and everything sure looked good and rich. I would have thought they'd like that.

I am still watching to see what mine do. They are growing pretty thick now and look as happy as any other potato vine I've planted by the traditional method. Time will tell. I'll let you guys know.

 

[gardentoad]

But I've always heard they were after the beetle larvae in the soil, so I guess that's a lose/lose situation, huh. At any rate, I wish my neighbors would quit hauling off all the stray cats around here. I had no trouble with opossums, rats, mice, or anything as long as those barn kitties were on the job!

Ahhhhhh the joy of a container garden, and 8 barn cats



Don It's just to hot to do anything but :watering

 

[vfem]

It looks like we ALL battle a vole one day to the next. We have terrible moles and voles out in our yard, I'm always tripping over tunnels and falling into underground burrows. Or main savior are the cats and the black rat snakes. However, I always find 1 or 2 things still destroyed by a vole before I found its mangled body from the cats. However, I don't blame it on the straw I use as mulch, they're everywhere anyways. My beds that do well are the ones I laid down chicken wire and mesh and then built the bed over it and filled with dirt.

I found one dumb vole made it's way into the chicken coop... needless to stay, it was 5 minutes of playing with it before my rooster finally won the battle and swallowed it whole!