Hello,
I have a garden of about 2 acres in eastern France (triangulated between Lyon, Grenoble and Geneve); it is a very rural area.
When we moved to this house four years ago, the land had been rented by a local farmer who cut hay from it. I have been using mulch to enable me to plant fruit trees, trees, shrubs and many perennial plants into grassland.
Last summer was the first time I grew vegetables which I planted directly through mulch into pasture which had been mulched for over a year.
Last year, I was standing looking at a tall allium in flower and I became aware of a noise approximating to “munch, munch”. I looked around and traced the sound to the bottom of the allium at which point the allium stem promptly dropped 12 cms into the ground. Amazed I lifted it up and found it neatly munched off. I dug into the ground – no bulb to be found. Then I heard “munch, munch” again and say the stem of another nearby allium shaking and then dropping down. About eight alliums were destroyed this way. Very annoying.
Later in the summer, I discovered 2 of my 5 celery plants wilting, I lifted them up and their roots had been eaten. A similar story with celeriac, lettuce, sown beans (but not the roots of growing French dwarf beans) and carrots. I also grew two melon plants (which produced about 30 melons between them) and one butternut squash – these were ignored. All these were planted directly into mulch (fabric).
I set some mole traps but with no effect. I set some mouse traps and caught about 6 voles – much bigger than the voles I am used to seeing in the U.K. (so I am not sure they are Microtus arvalis) I don’t think they were larger due to the generous diet I gave them as before that, our cats had caught many large voles in the pasture.
There are a lot of buzzards here and I hear barn owls. I read about someone who has planted a lot of trees innoculated with Tuber melanosporum spores in Spain – he showed photographs of posts with a shorter top rail on top which he placed around the future truffle plantation; these posts were to enable birds of prey to perch and watch for mice, voles etc.
I intend to put up some perches and I shall also try the water trap but I’m not sure the water traps with old water bottles will be big enough for the larger voles – I’ll try and see.
Thank you all for the discussion and ideas and, outside this topic, thank you Charles for the idea of multi-sowing which I am now trying with onions and beetroot.
Best wishes,
Michele.
