Need help with vole damage in our forest gardens!!

Alright, Maine farmer and gardener friends-

Has anyone ever had an issue with voles in their gardens? Especially wondering if you grow in or near a forested area? We see them scurrying all around our land between brush piles and near gardens and we are having a serious munching problem. Never caught them in the act directly- but they seem the most prevelant pest! Even if their habits here are a little less than normal for voles. We are working on clearing the brush and mulch, but it's a work in progress! There are vole holes all about, though no real "runs" as you might see in a grassy area, as it's more of a forest/shrubby environment.

I understand from research that they typically would be going for roots and tubers instead of stems and vegetation, but our woodland voles appear to mainly be munching the base of transplants and small vegetable plants at the base of the stems- often disappearing with the entire plant, most often just leaving the bare stalk, and sometimes leaving everything behind- an intact stalk and leaves lying beside. The stalk left behind is often angled.

6 bean plants from one planting gone- 1 the first night overnight, 1 in first hour of the next morning, last two over an hour we were not at our camp later that afternoon - and they were planted directly next to building. A cucumber, 3 tomato seedlings, many basils, mint, lemon balm, bee balm, a kale, they seem to have moved into some of our perenials now and munched a bunch of tops off of our smallish onion plants. Again, some plants just disappear but many appear munched. Before this happened most attacks were at night, now it can be any time of day.. and we've been dealing with this for weeks, though the onions are a new development (I guess all the more delicious things have now been eaten!!)

We have no signs of deer or rabbits, such as dropping or any sightings, no squirrels, a couple chipmunks, birds, some mice, but many voles, because we see them.

I tried a dilute natural castor oil spray on everything, to no avail. More stalks munched the next morning.

We may be taking to stronger measures now to try and disrupt the population, but it's been a big frustration.

It's a secluded camp that we've been starting to farm and develop but we are only here 4 days a week. Don't feel like we can take on a cat here because of the winter months, bit we're sure that would help.  

Any experience with this? Thoughts? Ideas?.. It would be much appreciated! Thank you! ~Kiera.

I don't have experience with voles but, with other rodents, when the population starts getting too large, it doesn't take long for the snakes & other predators to show up and start reducing the numbers.
Cats can help; although they'll also kill snakes, lizards, frogs, etc.

I have some mean little voles at my place. They girdled every potted fruit tree/shrub I lovingly moved from my old house over winter. I assumed it was winter food scarcity, but they got started on one of my planted currants and an apple tree and I was quick to sort it out- I can’t be losing every tree I plant to these nibblers. We bought 200’ of 4” plastic drainpipe and cut them into lengths of 6-12”  . Each piece got two holes drilled at 180* to one another near one end. I use metal lawn staples to hold the tubes to the ground and mound dirt around the edges. So far no more trouble. You may be able to get my with just one staple per tube. I even had to use these for my brown eyes Susan’s- the voles were felling the flower stalks from the base.

In nature’s eternal quest for balance: I’ve seen a sharp increase in garter snakes and I hope they’re eating well. I’ve been making some rock pile snake habitat in the orchard to try and encourage them. So far they’re only housing some toads, but the snakes should find them eventually.

The plant left behind might be cutworms rather than voles. We had a terrible issue with voles this year, they ate a ton of potatoes killed almost all my horseradish and took a bite out of a lot of strawberries! I think they also ate the roots off of a new apple trees, it fell over and when pulled out it had almost no roots left so I am going to blame them. The reason it was so bad was the mild winter, our cat was killing 4 or 5 a week that we saw, probably more that we didn't but then she decided to fight a car and died. There are other cats up there as I see their foot prints, but the best thing we have found is a trap. We bought one where you find a hole, then find the tunnel and dig into the tunnel and place the trap there. so nothing else gets hit (well we got one mouse to and the dog, but she deserved it!)

Yup. For years and years. We have had predators about. Had a beautiful Ermine murdering them all. Have bull snakes. Have a ton of badger holes around the property. So nature is working on it. Unfortunately they reproduce faster than the predators and are simply out of control. We had a cat adopt us and she's a murdering machine. Never though we'd be able to keep a cap so she's welcome and I'm enjoying her mayhem.

Oh, yeah, Kiera, voles are the worst.   They sit in the greenhouse and just stare at me.  If I had a vole-skin coat I could easily spend a winter in Alaska.  I've found them up in fruit trees, climbing up the greenhouse walls, there isn't anyplace they won't go.

I've never had enough predators to keep them under control, and I've got a lot of predators, hawks, snakes, foxes, bobcats, coyotes....every year the amounts of them vary, depending on conditions.  One fall I caught 60  (yeah, six-oh) in buckets of water in the fall and I thought that would make spring easy.  Nope.  It was just a warning sign that spring was going to suck as well!

I use RatX or MouseX, a bait they will eat, but won't hurt something that eats them.   Sometimes they will jump in a bucket of water, but the birds also can get trapped in a bucket of water, and that's just too sad, so I don't leave those out anymore.