S.O., I use traps that look like . They are very durable in the garden, some of mine are over 10 years old. All I need to do - other than bait them - is to clean the mud out of the mechanism if it starts to bind up. The only part that ever breaks is the plastic release tab... and sometimes the traps get bent (or go missing) if a predator finds the mouse before I do. The alligator-style traps that I tried never caught anything. The small traps that I use are not really strong enough to to hold a ground squirrel; if caught, they usually pull free (leaving a little fur behind). There are larger versions meant for rats (I have about a dozen of those) which will kill ground squirrels. The ground squirrels can be just as destructive as voles, if you grow anything for dry seed... a pair of ground squirrels "harvested" nearly all of my pea seed one year, before I caught them. The only reason that they might drive voles away is that they compete for the same habitat & food supply. If you caught more field mice than voles, either that was a reflection of your rodent population, or the bait you used was more attractive to mice. In my home gardens, I caught a lot of field mice early in the season, but by late summer, all I was catching was voles.The vole population always seems to explode when the late tomatoes begin to ripen. In my rural garden, I had a period this year where I was catching toads - about 5-6 of them. (!!!) Not something I wanted to catch, obviously... can't figure out what might have attracted them to the traps, since that never happened before.

De-lurking here to say it's not just you! We had a strange spring with wild weather swings (up to 40F from daytime to night), and I have to say...this is the crappiest rose season I've had in 8 years. Very abundant number of buds--probably the most ever--but the quality of the individual flowers just stinks. Like the worst thrips damage ever, but each and every rose has it. Some roses had stunted/balled/withered buds, others had blackened petal edges, still others didn't bother with blooms. My Queen Elizabeths, easily the most prolific roses in my garden, haven't bloomed yet. There are some old, established bushes that hardly went beyond their pruned size and only spewed a few deformed buds. Thrips are normally a problem on my light colored roses, but this blight is affecting every color. The later developing buds are better--if on the small side. It's the roses that developed first (late April to early May, which is quite late for us) that were the worst. Surprisingly, the roses that seemed to shrug it off best were some of my David Austins--Jude, the Dark Lady, and a few others. But some of the DA's (Abraham Darby) and other shrub roses and climbers (like Sombreuil) were just horrific. My mom came over and said "you know, if you just look at the roses from the house, they're not so bad." Sigh. And we had such a lovely, rainy winter (for us) that I was sure the rose flush was going to be awesome. And the numbers were truly impressive--hundreds of buds on some of my small (3 ft) bushes, which is the best I've seen. But again, the actual quality of the buds was the worst I've ever seen. Some tried and true winners from my garden were hard pruned just because I couldn't bear to look at their browned/blackened/crinkly/balled horrible little blooms. These included: memorial Day, Queen Elizabeth, Sheer Bliss, Peace (sob), Marilyn Monroe, Daybreaker, New Zealand, Just Joey, blue Nile, Evelyn, Abe Darby, Charles Darwin, Autumn Sunset, Golden Something(normally gorgeous downturned sunny yellow blooms, but this time they didn't even open!),Chicago Peace, Tamora, Pink Peace, Mirandy, Mary Rose, Secret (double sob), McCartney Rose, Tiffany....I could go on, but I'm feeling kind of nauseous. To put it in different terms: I have over 160 rose bushes with few repeats, and this year I have only brought six cut blooms into the house. SIX. But who can really blame the poor roses? Last week we hit 100 degrees on Monday, and on Thursday the high was 54 with rain (snow in Flagstaff, poor buggers). What is a plant to do in these conditions? Apparently, they sulk. Now it's getting to be blistering hot again, with humidity in the single digits. Spider Mite season. I won't likely see a good bloom until September, and then the deer and javelinas will be moving in for their Autumn feast. I'm thinking of getting into daffodils. At least the lilies, Shasta daisies, coreopsis, and cannas are doing well. And the glads look like they might actually open this year (last year they were all duds). I'm off to sulk myself. Heather

I think maybe? you started with too small quantity of worms. You said $30 for them. So you purchesed 1 1b probably or maybe 2 1bs at the most. I think you should have bought 4 or 5 pounds for one of those big bins. They will mutliply in the right conditions but you have to only feed them as they will eat. I would add some new bedding and feed them zukinie squash and pumpkin or butternut squash and some corn meal. But only give them a 1/2 cup every three or four days for 1 1b. at first and make sure they eat it before giving more. I always start out with cardboard and compost and dried leaves crumbled up and soak the leaves and cardbaord before adding to the compost. If you can buy more worms that would be good so you can feed them more. It does take more than one try for some of us to get the hang of things. That is not too much water in the bedding and not too much food to soon. Do you have any books on worms like " Worms eat my Garbage". I bet that book would help you out alot. Check your local library, it is an old book still available though. Good luck and keep posting your questions. I wish you had more people respond to help out. Bill C

Dave brings up some good points, as usual. :-) If you are in zone 5, I would not say that planting the end of May was too late. Especially this year, with the winter and early spring weâÂÂve had. Tomatoes and peppers, sweet potatoes, they all want heat and sun, right? We still have a lot of that ahead in July and August. If you can get your soil checked and stop adding anything more until you find out what the soil test says, you may still be able to get your garden growing. I grow organically, so I donâÂÂt use synthetic fertilizers like 12-12-12 or Miracle Grow, so I donâÂÂt have experience with using those, but with synthetic fertilizers, thereâÂÂs always the possibility you are adding too much. The soil test will determine the level of nutrients in the soil as well as the PH. I see you are adding grass clippings and I use those as well, but my own grass has not had anything applied to it and I do mix them with chopped brown leaves from the Fall. That is good organic matter, which your soil needs, if they have not been treated with any chemicals. Not sure about using the leftover plant material. If it was healthy leftovers and they were broken up into smaller pieces that could be okay. One thing that did catch my eye, is the crop growing next to your garden. Is that corn? Is it your own corn or a neighborâÂÂs? Do you know if it has had any pesticide sprayed on it or is a lot of synthetic fertilizer being used on that too?