I always think of voles as root-eaters, but apparently they will eat all parts of a plant.

One website says they're virtual eating machines, and that they eat their weight in vegetable matter every day (or maybe it was some number x their weight...). Since you've taken precautions against the other likely culprits, I'd bet on this being vole damage.

Does anyone know how these companies get coyote urine? Is it synthetic, or is there a "farm" full of captive coyotes somewhere? (I picture this in some gawd-forsaken area in the mid-west, next door to the puppy mills)

no damage this am, we were late planting this year so it would be nice to get something out of it before the critter does more damage.

Yea, I was wondering how they get the coyote urine too, it was $14.99 for the bottle. At this rate it would be cheaper to buy broccoli at the grocery store.

Definitely could be a vole. And if there is one, there's a village. I don't know how you feel about exterminating these critters but removing them in some fashion is probably going to be necessary. They can do an amazing amount of damage and while like most toddlers, broccoli is not tops on their list of favorite snacks, when they're hungry they'll eat anything. And if you think rabbits are prolific, they have nothing on voles.

Voles don't hibernate so you will need to take some precautions for the winter or you'll find things like your clematis, small trees and shrubs, and late and very early perennials chewed and destroyed.

We wrap chicken wire around things we want to protect, making a cylinder that is about 6 inches away from the trunk or shrub all the way around. Even with that, it's more of an irritant for them than any real protection, but stuffed with salt marsh hay, it protects our most vulnerable plants from the drying winter winds we deal with here on the coast.

Our best weapon was our cat, who did a fine job of pest control until she died a couple of years ago. Fences only make it harder for them. They can tunnel as deeply as you can bury chicken wire, although we did find that it was just enough of a deterrent to give our cat a chance to go into attack mode.

After the cat died two years ago, I felt like I was fighting a losing battle until one of our Cavalier King Charles Spaniels took up where our late cat left off. At 17 pounds and neurologically impaired to boot, it's amazing to see this pup in action. He has single handledly eradicated the moles, voles, chipmunks, and woodchucks.

I wish you luck. Last summer, the woodchucks and voles ate our entire vegetable bed to the ground and began using the perennial beds as their personal buffet before Spencer (AKA Tough Nut) found his mojo and went on the offensive with them. This year, our veggies are mostly on the deck but the yarrow and coneflowers and other perennials show no signs of rodent damage and the number of prey he is catching has dwindled dramatically from several a day to one or two a month.

A cat or a rat terrier or small spaniel might be your best weapon if poisoning or trapping isn't something you want to do.

I always wondered about the coyote urine too. That's why I decided to bypass it - the images in my mind are similar to what DTD describes.

Good luck - I know from personal experience how destructive voles can be. I hate to say this, but "one vole" probably did not eat all those leaves! Unfortunately, if you have one vole, you probably have many.

It sounds like you have taken good precautions, but I'm unclear on one part - did you sink the fencing/chicken wire into the ground, or lay it across the top of the ground? If you bury it into the ground all along the perimeter of the garden, you may have more success in keeping the voles out. I'm not sure how deep is recommended - maybe a foot?You can probably do a search on it to find the recommendation.

Good luck!
:)
Dee