Gardening

How to prevent or stop voles from eating your plants

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Trying to figure out how to prevent or stop voles from eating the plants in your garden? Read on to learn how!


Our yard is a half acre edible organic landscape. We use no-till growing methods and top-dress our beds with wood chip mulch.

These techniques are GREAT for:

  • soil health,
  • plant health, and
  • providing habitat for a wide diversity of wildlife species.

However, there is one significant downside: we’ve created an ideal habitat for voles. Voles easily tunnel through our soft, rich soil, protected from predators by a thick layer of mulch.

Beneath the soil surface, there’s an all-a-vole-can-eat food buffet of delicious plant roots. And where their tunnels open to the surface, even more food awaits.

Over the years we’ve had voles:

  • kill young fruit trees (by eating their roots),
  • slurp whole plants down their holes like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and
  • wreak havoc on our tubers and bulb plants (onions, Dahlias, gladiolas, hostas, and others).  

What are voles? 

Voles are small (5-7″ long) herbivorous rodents that spend the majority of their lives underground. They look very similar to mice. 

Bank vole.jpg
Image credit: Original by Soebe, edited by FashionslideOwn work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link.

What kind of plant damage do voles do? 

Voles are voracious pests that eat bulbs, tubers, tree roots, seedlings, and the stems of mature plants.

If you’ve noticed underground tunnels just below the soil surface zigzagging through your garden/yard plus disappearing or dead plants, chances are you’ve got voles…  

Voles vs. mice vs. shrews vs. moles – what’s the difference? 

Voles, mice, shrews, and moles are often confused, even though they’re different species.

Here’s a helpful comparison chart showing you what each species looks like, plus some of their distinguishing characteristics:

Voles versus mole versus shrew versus mouse. What's the difference? Comparison chart.

A quick comparison chart showing you the difference between shrews, voles, mice, and moles. Chart created by Tyrant Farms. Additional credit: 1) shrew image by Eliza Holcombe, 2) vole image by Soebe, edited by FashionslideOwn work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link, 3) mouse image by George Shuklin (talk) – Own work, CC BY-SA 1.0, Link, 4) mole image by Kenneth Catania, Vanderbilt University, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link.

If you’re trying to stop a particular pest species from causing damage, it’s important that you know what it is so you can use the appropriate prevention or eradication method. 

For instance, voles and moles both create tunnels in your yard or garden. However, voles are herbivores whereas moles are carnivores (eating slugs, grubs, insects, spiders, etc).

If you’re trying to get a mole (carnivore) out of your yard/garden using a trap baited with peanut butter, you’re not going to have much luck because: a) they rarely come to the soil surface, and b) peanut butter isn’t appetizing to them.  

Breeding: how many new voles can a vole pair create in a year?  

Voles breed year round, but breed most prolifically during the warm months of spring and summer. Even though voles don’t live long (2-16 months), they reproduce rapidly. 

A single female vole can have as many as 5 litters per year with as many as 11 young per litter. That means that a female vole who lived for about one year could produce 55 new voles!  

Granted, voles populations are kept in check by:

  • predators (cats, dogs, hawks, owls, snakes),
  • various diseases, and
  • food availability;

…so their population numbers tend to ebb and flow rather than going perpetually upward. 

How to prevent or stop voles from eating your plants 

The Tyrant LOVES dahlias, beautiful flowering plants that also produce delicious edible bulbs and flowers. Problem: voles love them too. Read on to find out how to prevent or stop voles from eating your garden plants!

The Tyrant LOVES dahlias. They produce beautiful flowers and the heirloom varieties produce delicious edible tubers and flowers. Problem: voles love eating dahlias too. Read on to find out how to prevent or stop voles from eating your garden plants!

Now comes the big question: if you’ve got voles in your yard or garden, how do you prevent or stop them from eating your plants? 

There’s no single right answer, but we’ve found some very effective solutions over the years. First, what NOT to do…

Please don’t use poison to kill voles

Yes, you can put out poison bait near vole holes to kill them. However, there’s a good chance that the critter will crawl out of its tunnel in poisoned agony and be eaten by your or your neighbors’ cat or dog, an owl, hawk, or beneficial snake. 

Thus, we strongly advise against using poison to kill voles given the high potential for collateral damage. 

What about electronic vole repellers and deterrents?  

There are lots of different ultrasonic devices that are supposed to keep away voles, moles, gophers, chipmunks, and other pest rodents. 

Apparently, some people have good results using these devices to deter certain rodent species. Last summer, we tried the highest rated ones we could find at the time to try to keep ground hogs out of the plots at Oak Hill Cafe & Farm

Did they work? Nope. The ground hogs could not have cared less, and I also noticed vole tunnels and holes within feet of where the devices were positioned.

Who knows, maybe the technology has advanced since then – or they’ll work for your particular species of rodents. We just can’t advise using them given our previous experience.    

So what does work to keep voles from eating your garden plants? As detailed below, the answer depends on the type of garden bed you have and also the type of plant you’re trying to protect…

1. Vole prevention in RAISED garden beds

If you’re just about to break ground on new raised garden beds, then you’re in luck! With two simple design additions, you can vole-proof your raised garden beds by:

  1. firmly attaching 1/4″ – 1/2″ hardware cloth to the bottom of the frame (to prevent voles from tunneling under and in to the bed), and
  2. make sure the sides of your raised beds are a minimum of 2′ high to *prevent voles from climbing or jumping in). 

(*Note: Voles aren’t great climbers or jumpers. A 2′ tall frame should prevent voles from climbing/jumping in, but the taller the sides of your raised beds, the better.)

How to vole-proof a raised bed. Here's one of our raised metal garden beds before we filled it. You can see the 1/2

Here’s one of our raised metal garden beds before we filled it. In the bottom of the bed, you can see the 1/2″ galvanized hardware cloth which keeps voles out. The wire extends out a few inches beyond the exterior of the frame on all sides, but is buried in mulch (which is why you can’t see it in this photo).

Lastly, if you have ducks (like we do), chickens, dogs, or children who might dig or forage around the edges of your raised beds, make sure to bend any sharp, pointy edges back and under to prevent injury! 

Before putting mulch over the hardware cloth that extends beyond the edges of the bed, we bend back any sharp, pointy corners and edges in order to prevent potential injury.

Before putting mulch over the hardware cloth that extends beyond the edges of your raised bed frames, bend back any sharp, pointy corners and edges in order to prevent potential injury.

Side note: We love our OLLE metal raised garden beds so much that we decided to become an OLLE affiliate. That means if you use the code TYRANTFARMS at checkout when buying your own metal raised beds, you get 10% off your purchase and we get a small tip as thanks. Nice! Check out OLLE metal raised garden beds here

What about vole-proofing a wooden raised bed?

Here’s an illustration showing you how to vole-proof a standard wood raised bed in your garden: 

Prevent or stop voles from getting into a raised bed garden.

Image: step-by-step, how to make a vole-proof raised bed for your garden. Note: sides of bed should be at least 2′ tall. 

Make sure there are no gaps for voles to sneak in!

Regardless of what type of material your raised beds are made of, note that gaps any larger than about 1/2″ between the wire hardware cloth and the raised bed frame will allow voles to sneak in. So if you’re making your raised beds out of wood, use barbed u-nails to firmly affix the hardware cloth to the frame with minimal space between nails (6″ or less). 

Can you modify an existing raised bed to be vole-proof? 

If you already have raised garden beds and you want to keep voles out, you can do the following:

  1. Dig a 1′ deep trench around the outside and bury hardware cloth in it. Supposedly, voles won’t dig any deeper than a foot. 
  2. If the height of the walls of your bed is less than 2′, you’ll want to add additional framing to the sides of your raised beds to reach 2′ tall in order to prevent voles from climbing or jumping in. 

Note: If you think there are already voles living under the soil surface in your raised beds, taking the steps above will trap the critters in your beds, which won’t do you much good. In this case, you’d also need to temporarily dig out the existing soil to make sure no voles/nests are present before vole-proofing the beds. 

2. How to protect your fruit and nut trees from voles

After having voles eat the roots and kill some of our fruit trees, we’ve learned from our mistakes. When planting new fruit trees, do the following to prevent voles from damaging or killing your trees:

1. Dig a hole to the appropriate size and depth of the fruit tree/root ball you’re transplanting.

2. Make a “root cage” out of 1/2″ hardware cloth. You can either: a) make a simple round cage that’s open at the bottom and top, or b) make a basket that’s open at the top. 

3. Insert your cage or basket in the hole extending at least 12″ deep below the soil surface, then transplant your fruit tree inside. Also, you’ll want to make sure the cage extends a few inches ABOVE the soil surface so the voles don’t scoot right over the top of it. 

The roots of your tree will eventually grow through the 1/2″ caging, while preventing the voles from accessing the tree’s root crown.  

One of our Asian persimmon trees in a hardware cloth basket. The tree was a tiny sapling when we put it in, and the roots have grown right on through the wire. You can also use Vole King baskets (see below), rather than these DIY baskets.

One of our Asian persimmon trees in a hardware cloth basket. The tree was a tiny sapling when we put it in, and the roots have grown right on through the wire. You can also use Vole King baskets (see below), rather than these DIY baskets.

3. How to protect your bulb, tubers, and other transplants from voles

We are super excited to have finally found a 100% effective solution to keep voles from eating our bulbs, tubers, and other transplants! 

For years, we watched hopelessly as voles sucked down our artichoke plants into their evil, dark holes, leaving behind only despair and agony. We were helpless as our healthy onion bulbs disappeared overnight, and our dahlias died daily. 

No more!

This year, The Tyrant found Vole King stainless steel flexible mesh cages.

How to prevent or stop voles from eating garden plants.

Prepping dahlia tubers for the garden in our Vole King flexible stainless steel wire baskets. Bring on the voles!

We’re mostly using the 1 gallon and 2 gallon Vole Kings given the size of our plants. However, you can also get them in smaller or larger sizes – up to 15 gallons for large plants like fruit trees.

The Tyrant attaches labels to the top of each Vole King basket so she can remember what variety is in each basket. If you're planting edible tubers that you harvest in fall after the plant has gone dormant, these tags are especially helpful.

The Tyrant attaches labels to the top of each Vole King basket so she can remember what variety is in each basket. If you’re planting edible tubers that you harvest in fall after the plant has gone dormant, these tags are especially helpful.

How to use Vole King mesh baskets

When you’re putting in vole-sensitive transplants (like artichokes), bulbs, or tubers, simply:

1. Put the appropriately-sized vole king cage in the hole you dig (the cages are flexible and don’t have sharp points, making them very easy to work with barehanded).

2. Plop in your transplants, tubers, or bulbs, then fill up the cage with soil level to the surrounding soil surface.

How to prevent or stop voles using Vole King baskets.

Vole king basket in the hole and ready to be filled with soil.

3. As with fruit tree cages, you’ll want your Vole King cages to extend 2″ above ground. This prevents voles that are tunneling near the surface from being able to easily go over the top of the cages.

How to prevent or stop voles in your garden by Tyrant Farms. Artichoke growing in Vole King basket.

Left: Young artichoke transplant just put into a Vole King mesh basket in one of our no-till, mulched beds. Right: same artichoke plant a month later.

We’re happy to say that we haven’t lost a single plant this year since using our Vole King cages! We’d given up on growing artichokes years ago (they seem to be a vole favorite), but we’re super-excited about having garden-fresh artichokes on the dinner table this summer.

Every other vole favorite plants we have in Vole King mesh cages are thriving as well.

Why do we prefer Vole King baskets versus hardware cloth? 

For one, the Vole King baskets are flexible so they easily conform to whatever size and shape hole you put them into. Second: cutting, bending, and tying together each hardware cloth basket is a pain in the neck and usually ends up in scraped and scratched hands. (We have to remove our gloves to tie the pieces together with metal wire.) Third, there are no additional tools required with Vole King baskets.  

The cost difference between the two options is negligible, so we prefer the option that’s easiest and fastest. 

Other vole control methods

If it’s legal in your state, you can also use the following vole control methods:

1. Trap and release voles. Transport them 1+ miles away to make certain they don’t return. 

2. Use mouse traps to kill voles. If you know where a vole hole is, place a mousetrap next to the opening baited with a mixture of peanut butter and oats. Then put a large cardboard box over the area (covering the trap and the vole hole) to prevent another animal from getting snagged. 

Personally, we don’t really feel like putting in the time and effort to use these trap or kill methods. Now that we have methods to prevent or stop voles from eating our plants, we’re comfortable coexisting with the creatures. 


We hope this article helps you stop voles from eating your garden plants. Have questions? Ask away in the comments section below.  

 

Trying to figure out how to effectively prevent or stop voles in your garden, without resorting to poisoning them? We've tested lots of methods, and have the answers you're looking for! #volecontrol #pestcontrol #rodentprevention #voleprevention #tyrantfarms

KIGI,

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20 Comments

  • Reply
    Alecia Bradley
    May 31, 2023 at 7:22 pm

    I used to make those wire baskets which was a royal pain, hurt and cut myself regularly, and finally gave up trying to grow. I just need to know if I can purchase some of your wire baskets. They look perfect for my needs but i don’t see anything in this site about buying some. If they are for sale, you should make buying them easier. I am very interested if you’ll tell me how to purchase.

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      June 1, 2023 at 8:06 am

      Hi Alecia! We’re not a producer or manufacturer of wire baskets, we’re just recommending products and methods that we’ve found to work to prevent voles from damaging our plants. The pre-made wire baskets we recommend are made by a company called Vole King, and can be purchased on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2Mtp9EC. Hope these help you as much as they’ve helped us!

  • Reply
    Kristen
    May 9, 2023 at 3:10 pm

    Hi there,

    Last year, voles ate all of my sunflower seeds once planted and I wasn’t able to grow any. If I follow the above steps, will the sunflower’s roots be able to grow through the hardwire cloth, given that their roots need to grow quite deep?

    Thanks in advance!

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      May 11, 2023 at 11:53 am

      Hi Kristen! Yes, sunflower roots will have no trouble growing through 1/2″ hardware cloth. The roots would also grow fine through Vole King bags. Good luck beating your voles!

  • Reply
    Mary Regoli
    April 29, 2023 at 10:18 am

    How do you firmly attach the hardware cloth to the bottom of the metal raised bed?

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      May 1, 2023 at 11:54 am

      Hi Mary! We did not firmly attach the metal hardware cloth to the bottom of our metal raised beds. We just leveled the ground, put the hardware cloth down, then put the metal raised beds on top of the wire. Then we put down some mulch to hide the hardware cloth.

  • Reply
    Marty Rudolph
    March 26, 2023 at 8:28 pm

    This is very helpful information and makes me feel that I am not alone with vole phobia. But they did eat all my grape hyacinths, as well as the regular hyaciths just so you know.

  • Reply
    Maryann McArdle
    September 23, 2022 at 10:44 am

    Some of my clumps of dahlia tubers grow to be fairly large. Can they really fit inside a one gallon bag or do I need to get a larger size? Does the bag inhibit the growth of the tubers?

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      September 23, 2022 at 3:27 pm

      If you don’t plan to pull and divide your dahlia tubers at the end of the growing season, you’re probably better off getting a larger bag. We also eat our dahlia tubers so having them contained to a bag makes that process easier.

  • Reply
    Ross
    August 8, 2022 at 5:26 pm

    I have a question about this: “If you’ve already got raised garden beds and you want to keep voles out, you can dig a 1′ deep trench around the outside and bury hardware cloth in it. Supposedly, voles won’t dig any deeper than a foot.”

    I’m wondering why surrounding the raised beds with hardware cloth would stop the voles? From what I can see in my own garden the voles make holes in different locations in the raised beds and then dive down them and go to work devouring all the roots of my plants, killing them overnight. So I am assuming even if my raised beds were surrounded by hardware cloth this wouldn’t stop them. Why would this work? Am I missing something?

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      August 9, 2022 at 11:22 am

      Sorry for any confusion on that point, Ross. We edited that section a bit to make it more clear. It now reads:

      “If you already have raised garden beds and you want to keep voles out, you can do the following:

      1. Dig a 1′ deep trench around the outside and bury hardware cloth in it. Supposedly, voles won’t dig any deeper than a foot. 

      2. If the height of the walls of your bed is less than 2′, you’ll want to add additional framing to the sides of your raised beds to reach 2′ tall in order to prevent voles from climbing or jumping in. 

      Note: If you think there are already voles living under the soil surface in your raised beds, taking the steps above will trap the critters in your beds, which won’t do you much good. In this case, you’d also need to temporarily dig out the existing soil to make sure no voles/nests are present before vole-proofing the beds. 

  • Reply
    Martha
    August 2, 2021 at 2:39 pm

    Hello. My question is regarding raised beds gardens. I have voles which have managed their way into my beds. I used mesh 1/2 but unfortunately they got in. I see and have leaned by my mistakes like: overlapping the mesh because it wasn’t wide enough. Well would you recommend adding mesh around where I “see” the openings now( in order to try and save my onions, carrots and pepper family) ?? Or is it too late?

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      August 3, 2021 at 12:34 pm

      Sorry for your troubles, Martha! Voles can drive gardeners absolutely crazy. As you’ve discovered, your mesh wire has to be secured to the underside of your raised bed framing with no gaps or holes – otherwise, voles will find their way in.

      It certainly can’t hurt to try to save this season’s crops by putting additional mesh wire over spots where you see voles coming in. However, it may be impossible to block all of their underground access points without pulling up the entire raised bed frame. Our advise: try to salvage this season’s crops by patching where you can. Then, when it’s time for a season transition and you’re finished with your summer crops, you may want to fully redo the wire mesh underneath your raised bed frames.

      Best of luck preventing future vole damage in your garden!

  • Reply
    Charlotte
    March 24, 2021 at 7:47 pm

    I’m too late to plant using the baskets: I’d planted an almond tree and have found what I believe is a vole hole (all the tulip bulbs I planted have disappeared) at the bottom of the tree going in to the roots. Is there any way I can now save this tree? Do I just fill up the hole and hope for the best? Thank you so much for your help.

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      March 25, 2021 at 10:37 am

      Hi Charlotte! As far as we know, there is no technology to protect an already-planted tree’s roots from vole damage. There is a possibility that you have moles, chipmunks, or some other rodent which are harmless to trees, rather than voles — although your disappearing tulip bulbs suggest otherwise. It’s also possible that with enough other food sources around, the voles won’t damage your almond tree before it’s able to reach an age/size where they can’t do much harm to it. However, if you want to be proactive, one thing you can do is set mouse traps next to the suspected vole hole(s) with a box over it to keep other animals (raccoons, possums, etc) from getting popped. If you keep after them, you can kill the colony. We hate killing wildlife, but: a) voles are not exactly an endangered species, and b) we know very well from experience how much damage voles can do to fruit trees, having lost an apricot, plum, and other trees over the years before utilizing root cages during transplanting. Best of luck and we hope your almond tree makes it!

      • Reply
        Karen Friedman
        August 31, 2022 at 12:37 am

        Hi! I’ve put finely chopped minced garlic that comes in a glass jar and is the “liquidy” kind around the base of established and/or container plants. You do have to refresh but I’ve had some real success. Sometimes I’ll mix with Chile powder.
        I just bought the mesh cages so I’m thrilled to hear they work.
        Once you decide to live as best you can, sharing your yard, Voles are fascinating creatures. They mate for life and are known to have higher amounts of the feel good hormones,(just blanking out on the hormone names), that create love connections than other mammals. While I do have bursts of Vole Venom, Over time they have peaked my curiosity and have just learned to share my yard. I also rather have Voles than mice. My feelings are, “ if not Voles, it will be something else”
        Love the article!

  • Reply
    Atlanta homeowner
    March 13, 2021 at 11:54 pm

    I am sad to say, our Atlanta pine voles were able to chew holes through all our vole king baskets. Save yourself the time, money, and frustration. ..wish I had known beforehand…lots of money wasted 🙁
    I have resorted to making homemade baskets with 1/4” hardware cloth available at big box stores.

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      March 14, 2021 at 10:39 am

      Oh no! I’ll be sure to reach out to the company to let them know about your report. We haven’t lost any plants we’ve put into vole king baskets here in Greenville, SC. We actually used to use the 1/4″ hardware cloth but switched to vole king baskets since they’re easier and faster to work with. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

  • Reply
    Bub's Bees & Blooms
    September 2, 2020 at 9:41 am

    If I’m planting a massive amount of bulbs (around 2,000) would you suggest making my own with hardware cloth to be more cost effective? Or if you think I should still use the vole king cages – what is the largest size I can use with it still being effective?

    • Reply
      Aaron von Frank
      September 2, 2020 at 11:52 am

      Sounds like Vole King baskets might not be the most economical solution in your situation. The other option we mention in this article for vole prevention will likely be best: build raised beds with mesh wiring attached to the bottoms to prevent voles from tunneling in. You could also trench out large in-ground beds and bury hardware cloth, but you run the risk of voles going over the top and in on that large a space. Hope this helps and best of luck!

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