Mice in the garden. What have you done?

Hey there! For reference, we live directly in a forest, and we have been carving out vegetable gardens from the bush using mostly hugelkulture mounds for planting. I have also tried to mulch the paths in between for weed suppression, mostly. Our last mulch experiment has been leaves we got from the local county. The first thing my husband said when I talked to him about it was that he thought it would attract mice.

Well, he was right. Although, I think they were already there, especially in the one hugel mound for sure. The problem with the mounds (from what I have been researching on here from other readers) is that there is too little dirt and too many holes between the wood and the branches. This thread was especially helpful:

https://permies.com/t/184385/Venting-hugels

So, I see how this can be improved for next year, by adding more dirt and suppressing them down in the fall. But... for now, I saw a fat mouse bodly walking across the mound yesterday and need to do something. I did do research but would just love to hear what worked for you personally, in your situation.

By the way, we do have two cats but they are quite elderly and have mostly retired to the indoor space, which is safer for them, but also perpetuates the problem. They used to really help in that regard. My dog does like to chase mice but she has received heck for trampling the garden before, and now she is reluctant to go near it. Now, I wish she would get in there!

Thanks so much in advance for any sharing.

By accident, last year a mother left her kitten with us so we have no mice.

She was an outside cat until winter and found that she likes to sleep in her own bed at night so she comes home at 8:00 pm when I take out the dog.

The only other advice I can offer is to set lots of traps or plant lots of smelly plants that mice don't like.

In the past, dear hubby has made this trap and caught mice:

https://permies.com/wiki/107924/pep-animal-care/Live-rodent-trap-PEP-BB#1789869


If you make one be sure to take pictures to get a BB (Badge Bit).

We started from scratch on vacant land, and the first few years there were lots of mice. They'd dig up a large portion of seeds I'd planted in the garden.

One thing I did was put strips of hardware cloth down over the rows of whatever I'd planted, then carefully pull the strips up over the plants once they'd grown through a bit. I did that mainly with peas.

For squash, I made little hardware cloth cages that I could put over top of each cluster of squash seeds I planted. Then the plants could get a bit of a start inside the cages before I pulled them off.

Squash and peas were the ones I had the most trouble with - the big, tasty seeds.

Now, a few years on, we have so many garter snakes that mice aren't such a problem. The dogs aren't allowed in the garden, and they're generally pretty good about staying out. So the gardens are safe places for snakes.

I still see mice around, but they're not doing the damage they used to. I assume the snakes are keeping them in check.

Any chance you vould let hungry chicken roam there? My chickens frequently came out of the woods with a mouse dangling from their beak.