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Re: Rabbits or Voles

At 10:52 AM 8/17/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Thanks Jim....have you tried watering them in?...In other words , does
>watering them as you plant help any?  Other suggestions point to skunks or
>even raccoons, but the holes are no wider than 2 or 3 of my
>fingers....Don't think a raccoon could be that precise and probably neither
>could a skunk....thanks again

I'm not sure it makes any difference exactly what is doing the digging.
Even if they are eating the roots after digging them up I don't see how
your strategy would change for voles versus skunks. The hard truth is that
if you're a city plant life must seem pretty tough when you discover
yourself out there on the prairie.

I always water everything so I have no way of determining whether it makes
any difference to the nighttime diggers.  Watering plantings in generally
dry versus generally wet ground does not seem to affect the digging
predation so I suspect it may not matter.  I think watering seedlings makes
another sort of predation difference, though, when planting late in the
summer.  If the prairie is generally dry it seems to me the wet soil
attracts grass hoppers who are happy to eat the seedlings instead of the
mature dry plant material usually available at that time of year.  In late
summer I seem to get much less initial insect damage when I plant just
after a rain.

Jim MacDonald


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