voles and mulch and cover crops

this year I was diligent about cover cropping, mulching (with cardboard, and some very weedy/grass areas with black plastic) in an attempt to not have bare soil.  One unfortunate result was that voles have found the cover to be quite convenient.  They ate all my brussel sprout plants almost as soon as I set them out.  I also think they are eating the stems of my squash - not the squash, just the main stem which of course kills the whole plant!  At first I thought it was gophers (which I continually trap), but I have found pathways under the mulch, and I saw a vole running through the squash, so now I think it is probably voles.

I don't want to leave the soil bare!  Anyone have advice for having mulch and cover, and also not losing plants to voles?

Not my expertise, but here's a couple of threads that may help:
https://permies.com/t/40/38956/swale-headaches#535809
https://permies.com/t/1334/critters/Sepp-Holzer-moles-voles

I plant garlic as a perimeter barrier around our gardens, it seems that voles aren't fond of the odor garlic puts off in the soil because where there is garlic there are no voles and where there isn't any garlic we have voles.

Redhawk

garlic - great idea,thanks!
thanks also for the links

They don't seem to like burrowing under woodchips.

I have voles in my orchard. They love burrowing under cardboard / hay; cardboard / woodchips; and just hay. So far not under just woodchips. Although they don't seem to be as active in the summer. Activity increases through the fall. I guess other food sources become scarce.

Next year I'm going to experiment with woodchips first, covered seasonally by hay, with hay raked back in the fall.

J Blair wrote:this year I was diligent about cover cropping, mulching (with cardboard, and some very weedy/grass areas with black plastic) in an attempt to not have bare soil.  One unfortunate result was that voles have found the cover to be quite convenient.  They ate all my brussel sprout plants almost as soon as I set them out.  I also think they are eating the stems of my squash - not the squash, just the main stem which of course kills the whole plant!  At first I thought it was gophers (which I continually trap), but I have found pathways under the mulch, and I saw a vole running through the squash, so now I think it is probably voles.

I don't want to leave the soil bare!  Anyone have advice for having mulch and cover, and also not losing plants to voles?

cardboard honestly was to good to give up. I ended up using biochar soaked in  concentrated castor oil . and I mixed it into the base layer of the cardboard and woodchips. Sometimes I use a thin pipe and will stick in more concentrate from time to time in areas. So it doesn't taste good.  This is something I do only early on in the trees live. After a few years in I still do cardboard and woodchips but you don't need to do the  concentrated castor oil unless your replacing a young tree that died. Then be agressive about it. To be honest if you have cats it helps a lot so they don't get comfortable. If you run livestock dogs they normally hunt some.  Just the dog being in the area marking can make them uneasy. We use a lot of vernal pools to make sure we have toad spawn and other things on property. Those tempary pools are probably why we are in the battle. But a farm is an eco system. And sometimes you invite a guest on property for the bigger picture. And those vernal pools are so important to a farm eco system, hell ranch eco systems as well.  Good lock on your issue.Don't give up and do bare soil. Sometimes you can win every tree. I always keep some in containers going just to plug into dead spots. It really sucks to lose plants to them. Oh and don't forget to setup barn owl nesting spots.  You can never go wrong setting up a barn owl nesting spots. BEcause they don't go after chickens just rodents mostly. The key is to make them uneasy at best. Which solves a lot of the issue over time.