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.

Hey Wanda. You mentioned on another thread that you have an unbelievable rollie pollie invasion this year. You do know that they are not insects but Isopods, a group of crustaceans. Aka: Lawn Shrimp. Perhaps you can boil em up with some spices? They have very few predators because they have a "distasteful secretion", lol. Anyway, if you're not gonna collect em and boil em, you need a bunch of these. Press on link. The "Sow Bug Killer Spider". Warning: Now I know the original bug link early in this thread had some "enthusiastic" bug People but this link has off-the-chart spider enthusiasts. (You've been warned.) P.S. Sorry in advance Wanda. I can't sleep tonight. I ran out of plants so I can't garden. My closets are clean. The only thing left to do is to "bug" you. ~di Here is a link that might be useful: Don't click this Marda,lol.

I needed to read this thread. I have dumped so many containers with no sign of life, not even roots. Other containers will meet the same fate if I don't see some action soon. I have many with seedlings that are still so small (after germinating in March!) that their embryo leaves are still hugging the soil. Last year at this time, seedlings were getting leggy because I couldn't get them in the ground fast enough. This year, at least in zone 7 Southside Virginia, we had summer in January, February, and March, deep winter in April, a sneaky, killing frost in early May, stingy rain ... if I were a seedling, I guess I would hunker down, cross my arms, and stay there, too. Like lindakimy, I have decided to be positive and count my blessings. Sunflowers are blooming, flocks of gold finches are covering my verbena bonarensis, perennials WSed last year are back (twice, three times their size from last year) and I have many reseeders. In and among the lilliputian seedlings, I am transplanting volunteer marigolds, zinnia, vinca, celosia plumosa, phlox drummondi, black-eyed Susans, castor bean, petunias, ageratum, balsam, salvia. If my gardens contained only volunteers, I would have a riot of color and bloom that I would not have with purchased stock. The volunteers are so thick! I have already transplanted so many and just today I potted up three trowelsful of vinca, for a yield of 96 cups! How much would that cost if purchased? I just hope the newbies aren't discouraged. I was a newbie last year and had fantastic germination, growth, bloom, and seeding. I'm glad I'm not a newbie this year with the odd weather and growing conditions. WSing is the only way for me!! So many plants ... so little money ... so much beauty and color. Hang in there. Tie a knot at the end of your rope. That's what I did.

Effective Organic Control to use is Diatect V. This is from the Natural Gardener website: Protect your new vegetable transplants from trouble. Have you ever had a wonderful day of gardening only to return the next morning to find half your transplants have been cut off at the base? Well, there are two possible culprits, the cutworm or pill bugs (aka rolly-pollies). A cutworm is a caterpillar that lives in the soil and will wrap itself around a new transplant at the base and cut it off. You can either protect the plant with a collar around the base or place a stick next to the stem so the cutworm will wrap around the stick along with the stem and not be able to cut through. Once the plant is established, the cutworm is not affective. The Pill Bug will gnaw at the base of a seedling or a new transplant. Once the seedling or transplant is established, the pill bug will generally leave the plant alone, so you need to be diligent about protection for only a short period of time. First for pill bug control keep the area on the drier side. Water early in the morning. This allows the top part of the soil to dry before night, when the pill bugs are active. Also keep mulch away from plants during this period of time. In the evening dust with Diatect V, diatomaceous earth (D.E.) and pyrethrin, around base of plants. Set up boards, grapefruit halves or banana peels as traps for the pill bugs and scoop them up every morning and dump into soapy water to get the population down. Pill bugs, like many pests, have their place in life as decomposers of dead plants or weak plants, so control is only needed during the early stages of the plant's life. The rest of the time let the pill bugs do their work. Roger and John have been doing tests here at the nursery and have been having great success with the certified organic pesticide Diatect V. It is a mixture of Diatomaceous Earth (D.E.) and pyrethrin. It does not have piperonyl butoxide as many other D.E./ Pyrethrin mixes do. Some of the harder to control bugs that we have success with include four-line bugs, squash bugs, stink bugs, harlequin bugs and other hard-shell bugs. It is best applied with an applicator to really get the dust where the bugs are - on the underside of leaves and the ground where they jump when they are disturbed. We have several different types. RogerÂs and JohnÂs favorites include the pest pistol, which is a simple accordion style pump bottle, and the dustin-mizer which is a hand-crank applicator that electrically charges the dust particle so it is attracted and sticks the plant - a must for large gardens. When you apply this product, you must take care not to inhale the very sharp silica particles of the D.E. Here is a link that might be useful: Organic pest control