I’m Getting tired of constantly fighting pests? Gardening doesn’t feel fun anymore

[lengoyeko]

For years, I’ve had to fight every countless varieties of insects, fungus, and hoards of destructive squirrels in my garden. For a few weeks now, I’ve been fighting what I assume are Voles digging tunnels all throughout my beds.

Idk, gardening just doesn’t feel fun for me anymore. I spend so much time and research making sure things are right in my garden, and I love taking care of plants + soil. But I reallllllly don’t want to have to come out every single day to make sure some stupid rodent didn’t dig up my entire vegetable bed, purely for ****s and giggles (they rarely ever bury anything). I already have put river rocks around all my new transplants so squirrels won’t rip them right out of the ground. Let alone the voles that are now digging tunnels DIRECTLY below my plants. Idk man, I may just let this year’s harvest go.

 

[Dirtmechanic]

You probably need to import some tortoises. Torti? What is plural for a hardshell anyway? You are obviously a devoted gardener. Pets that eat pests and help water cannot hurt you. I have a Dutch Shephard that is better at catching rodents than my cats. A chicken? They eat meat and bugs. Just two maybe?

They Kept Planting Trees in the Sahara and Kept Failing. Then They Released 500 Tortoises, and the Desert Looked Alive From Space

They released 500 giant reptiles into a barren stretch of the Sahara. Five years later, satellites spotted green where only sand had been.

indiandefencereview.com

 

[flowerbug]

yes, it's a challenge at times. only you can decide what to do with your efforts.

last year i had a bunny get inside the fenced gardens and it ate a lot of my plants. very frustrating until i managed to finally evict it. lost a lot of harvest.

for voles, get the large easy set big traps that you can squeeze open with your hands, get the ones that are metal, plastic breaks too quick. four of them will do for most gardens. bait them with pieces of dried apricots. make sure to stake them down so that raccoons or other animals can't steal them. sometimes you may get a bird by accident. you can set them so that birds won't see the trip pans. putting them in a box with a hole that only voles and chipmunks can get through can prevent a lot of issues, but that does take some time to get set up too.

no matter what there are always going to be issues.

i had to shoot at a groundhog the other day and today i saw the first chipmunk of the season (sometimes we're overrun with them so bad i have to hunt them - not something i enjoy doing but if i don't it's a huge problem to let get out of control).

 

[ducks4you]

@lengoyeko , helps to know WHERE you live.
Please put your general location with your avatar. Thanks.