thanks
david e.
va. bch. va.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a deterrent that works on mice. I garden on a friend's land, and their dogs mark the garden perimeter - to no avail. My garden is quite large, and I plan my garden such that there is little bare ground... so the little pests have plenty of places to hide.

I use a lot of mouse traps & a few rat traps, with locations marked by survey flags (which I also use to mark blossoms for hand pollinating). If I find damage in one area, I concentrate more traps there until I catch the culprit(s). This method is mostly effective... but in early Fall (when the late tomatoes are in full fruit) I usually get overrun, and can't catch them all fast enough.

Mice are not the only problem, either.

Once the vegetation in the garden becomes dense, rabbits usually move in to raise a brood. In years past, I found a trick that seemed to help; when I weed, I never pull clover. After a few years of letting them seed, I started getting a pretty good stand. Initially, I did this to improve the soil in the pathways. Well, it turns out that the rabbits would rather eat the clover than most vegetables! That is, until I began growing soybeans... at which point the bunnies stopped being cute, and became destructive.

Soybeans & bunnies don't mix; if you don't get rid of the rabbit, the rabbit will get rid of your soybeans... and I mean _completely_. Voles can take their toll on soybeans (and peas) as well, once the pods begin to fill. This is especially troublesome if you are saving seed, when the voles will strip entire plants of their pods... so as the pods begin to fatten, I place more traps around them. Fortunately for me (and unfortunately for the mice) they prefer dried apricots to most vegetables.

thanks and good luck
david

But the other time (also in SoCal) was against a particularly tenacious colony of ground squirrels. After placing bait in their burrows, I arrived at my garden the next day to find a dozen or so dead squirrels littering the ground. There were hawks nesting nearby, so I had to hurriedly collect & bury the dead. This took some time, but fortunately, the hawks were not yet active. It was a sobering experience, and I never used poison again.

As further evidence, I recently noticed a hawk observing me from his perch atop a building, as I was gardening. I had just cleaned my traps, and had a few dead mice. Normally I just bury them where I have open ground, but I wanted to see whether hawks would attack a dead animal... so I walked outside the garden, laid a mouse in the grass, and returned to the garden.

I wasn't sure that the hawk was watching; but it did, indeed, see the dead mouse. After watching it for awhile, the hawk took flight & hovered over it, then returned to its perch. It seemed to have trouble deciding what to do. But then, after a few more minutes of watching, it suddenly swooped down & flew off with the dead mouse.

So to make a long story short, I feel that the use of poison (regardless of its location) poses too great a risk to predators, which may receive second-hand poisoning by consuming the dead or dying rodents.

With that said, the use of poisons, especially with predators actively working an area, is a terrible thing to unleash. You can never find all the bodies of the vermin you are trying to kill, and it is a very painful way to go. I know, some would say they deserve no better, but my parents employed poisons once a long time ago in their house and garden, and it was absolutely awful. Imagine your insides turning into jelly. If you're going to kill something, kill it outright. Even a housefly gets a quick end with a swatter, a mosquito dies instantly with a slap of the hand.
There are alternatives, probably the cheapest is to borrow a few good hunter cats. Yes, you may have some poop to contend with, maybe some battle damaged plants, but they will do the job. A couple of small terriers are hell on wheels when it comes to rodents, too, and not big enough to cause serious garden damage. If you keep your growing area chemical-free, a few indigenous snakes will do the job nicely, as well.
Consider chipmunks. Yes, they are rodents too, but not so vermin-y, and they are quite territorial. Where there are chipmunks, no rat or mouse, or rabbit is welcome.
Hire a gunner. While the rats and mice will be refused, many hunters will gladly keep any rabbits they get. Leave the carcasses where they drop - rats are intelligent enough to figure out your garden is a killing zone fast enough.
Your quick kill snap-traps are good. Bait them with sweet tasting items, even peanut butter. Make them more attractive than your plants, to capitalize on the lure. Be sure to move the traps around, and even set up the next locations, away from your prized plants, by placing the lure food before there is a trap to begin with. Salt is an excellant lure to just about any mammal. Sometimes varmits bite ripe fruit more so for the water, not the food itself. Place a easy-access water dish at your next intended trap spot.

There are other things to try. In my area, it is rabbits, squirrels and white-tail deer that are that are chief amoung thieves. Since we are in city limits, guns are not an option.
Barriers are the most expensive to employ. With rabbits, you have to sink the edge of the fencing in at least 2 feet to deter them from digging under it. Chain link or chicken wire is best. Wood is the least effective on chewers. I would imagine with rats and mice, you'd need a tight-weave metal mesh, also sunk in, but the trouble with these rodents is they can climb quite well.
Other organic methods have their drawbacks, mostly they length of time they are effective. Pepper-based powders are really good, but they need to be replaced after a rain, or every 3 weeks as the dew and dampness of the earth renders them useless. There are ready-made products out there, but if you read the ingredient lists, you can mix up your own quite cheaply. While human hair, soaps hung around the perimeter of the garden may work for rabbits (and human male urine), I doubt these would scare a rat or mouse. But one can buy fox or wolf urine easily enough these days.

I hope something of what I wrote is helpful. I used to frown upon killing any animal, saying I took their chunk of land in the first place and they have a right to live just as much as I do. I still feel that way, more so for creatures that were here before us, not imported pests like rats. Then one summer my yard was invaded by groundhogs, which I was willing to put up with, until they got territorial, standing and baring their teeth at me. I had two young children at the time, and could not risk their safety (funny how our ideals change when our babies' safety is concerned!). We live-trapped them. In hindsight, it might have been better to death-trap them, because dumping them out in a rural area is a death certificate for the animal, and a pain in the backside for anyone living in that rural area.

I have no idea if it will really work, but I thought I'd pass it along.

Bellatrix

I have a cat that was - yes - rat poisoned (the blood thinner/cumadin type) (he recovered but it was a big vet bill and heartbreaking) so I don't let him out at night and have some reluctance about bringing other cats in - but I will say this is the first year I've had a rats-in-the-garden issue. Cats rule.

I've read that used kitty litter might work - but what about the results to the soil and the pregnant-woman issue (I don't think any pregnant women will be eating my tomatoes - but still). I've also read peppermint oil.

Had anyone found anything that works over the last 2 years? The impacted tomatoes are near my porch in large containers - I have other tomato plants - so far so good, but I fear its a matter of time.

Thanks for your help.