Of corn eating mice and other pests

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Mice are definitely not one of my favorite critters. Granted, they are cute and all that, but I typically can’t enjoy their delightful little antics with hantavirus in the back of my mind. I must admit, several years ago we had quite the population explosion, so much so that we could sit at our kitchen table and watch the mice run up the stalks of sunflowers. It was like a real life Jacquie Lawson card. (And if you haven’t checked out her animated artwork, you totally have to. When the boys were little they got such a kick watching them, and now they appreciate how well done they are… but I digress.) But once they started making their way indoors when the weather turned, all bets were off.

Pests

So far we’ve been good on the rodent front around here. I was a bit worried about the straw bales, and whether they would be a haven for them since Bill and Lynn, friends who put in a great straw bale system last year, had issues with them overruning just about everything. The good news with the straw blaes is the mice haven’t been the problem, but I sure have something eating my Swiss chard and celery. The leaves have tiny holes in them, and what’s interesting is it’s all of the same bale. I’m dusting it with diatomaceous earth to see if I can take care of the problem.

I do have a few cabbage moth caterpillars on the plants on the straw bales, too, but what I really love about them is it is super easy to pick them off. I like having the plants above my knees. It makes them simple to inspect, as well as harvest. That certainly earns a big plus in my book for the straw bale gardening method.

Of Mice (and men)

But back to the mice. Outside of them scurrying up and down the sunflowers, I really haven’t had problems with them bothering any of the vegetables. Today I heard something that really surprised me, though. When I was visiting at one of our fantastic local garden walks where a handful of gardens are open to the public, one of my friends told me about how the mice ate their corn this spring! That’s a new one to me. She said they planted it three times and it kept disappearing. The sprouted plant would be eaten along with the seed. The eventually resorted to poison and discovered the culprits. You just never know.

Thieves!

I do know they will eat ripe tomatoes, too. And, even though I’m not a tomato fan, I’d be even less of one if I knew mice were crawling all over them (that hantavirus thing again). I’ve heard of some gardeners in other parts of the country where they are absolutely overrun, and it’s nearly impossible to keep the mice (and sometimes rats!) away from their ripe tomatoes, even when they put cages and other exclusion methods around them.

In this case, almost your only option is the draconian measures of using either traps or poison, although I certainly wouldn’t recommend putting poison near anything edible. It’s best to stick with the plain on snap traps or the multi-mouse traps that captures them alive if you would prefer to have release program. (For the love of all that is holy, please wear gloves and long sleeves while dealing with them! I would probably wear a mask, too. Cooties and all, you know.)

It turns out that mice, even though they are small, can be terribly destructive in the garden. If they’re a problem, unless you are willing to share with Mr. Mouse and his 50 cousins, you will need to take more radical actions.

Meet Amy Grisak

Amy is a freelance author and photographer in Great Falls, MT who specializes in gardening, foods, and sustainable agriculture. She provides information on every kind…

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