DH got rid of raccoons in my parents' chimney with ammonia. My mother kept hearing crying sounds from the chimney and people thought she was losing it. It turned out to be a litter of raccoons. DH set up cinder blocks/bricks to a spot as close as possible to the inside entrance of the chimney. On top of that, he placed a pie plate full of ammonia. They changed the ammonia every other day to keep the smell very strong. Sure enough, Mamma Raccoon removed her babies one by one. Then my parents had a chimney cap put on or something to keep them from returning. Of course, outdoors is different. But placing shallow containers of ammonia among the hostas would be worth a try. And has anyone tried Liquid Fence? It has worked very well for me and a lot of friends for deer, on hostas and shrubs. Of course, that is applied to foliage, not the roots voles eat.

Look how long we've been struggling with voles! I first looked them up on gardenweb years ago when we had tons. I remember a day when I snap-trapped fourteen in a couple of hours! Here is an odd solution which has worked (apparently) for me. In frustration I began flooding the holes and tunnels with the end of my hose. Amazingly it seemed to work. I have done this for several years and where I use to have LOTS of voles and vole damage I rarely see a hole now and when I do I immediately flood it. I did use oyster shells but I have such large gardens that it was completely impractical. And now where I did use them they keep coming to the surface - years later - and I don't like the look of them. This year I have grubs and thus I have moles as well as skunks which dig holes in the lawn. I was able to move the moles away from the very front part of my yard also by flooding (stick the brass nozzle of the hose right through the turf into the tunnel) - it doesn't get rid of them like it seemed to get rid of the voles. But it did make them move. I am not a lawn fanatic but between brown spots from grubs and holes from skunks it's too ratty. I am using milky spore and it'll take quite some time before this solves the problem but it's the non-poison way to go and once established it'll do the trick for years. Just to say - unless I missed this on this long thread - moles and voles have not got the same habits and thus need different solutions. Voles are not carniverous, do not eat grubs so getting rid of the grubs won't deal with the voles. I only brought up the topic of moles as they also don't seem to like flooded muddy tunnels. After I tried my vole-death/relocation-by-flooding I read in an article somewhere that in Mexico some farmers were protecting their fields which were under vole attack by putting trenches filled with water around them. Well, hope somebody else tried flooding and writes about how it works for them . If nothing else, it is very satisfying!!

Kim, 25 years ago, I tested allergic to zucchini. The Dr was surprised because he said it was an uncommon allergy. He asked how I fixed them. I said, rolled in egg and flour and fried or made into zucchini bread--with egg, flour and milk. He had already told me I was allergic to eggs, flour and milk so said my body decided zucchini was quilty by association. It was not the permanent type of allergy. I had to totally eliminate those foods for two years--that was HARD--and then return one at a time. I can now eat them again, but I don't eat any of them every single day like I did for years. The weather forcast showed a probablilty of us getting 2-3 inches last night. I slept late this morning, hearing nothing overnight so I was surprised to see 2.2 inches in the gauge this morning. Yay! I am so glad because while dad was in the hospital over the weekend--48 hours--we stayed with mother because she is disabled and cannot stay alone--our water was running on three 50 ft soaker hoses in the garden. Our water bill is going to be outrageous! So we won't water anything until after the 15th when the meter gets read. There are enough buckets, tubs, and barrels under the eaves of the house and greenhouse to take care of the container plants until then. We have had a very cool summer so far. 97 was the highest temp so far and that was just one day. We have had more nights in the 60s this summer than in the 70s and none in the 80s. We've had good rain too. 6 inches in June, 3 in July and Now 2.5 in August. But all the rain and cool has been hard on my tomatoes. Every plant has a fungus disease. Early Blight I think. 3 have died; all are affected. Leaf footed bugs are also in good supply this year and doing damage, sucking juice out of the tomatoes. But we have had more squash and cucumbers than we can eat. I planted too many and they have just kept producing with no sign of SVB and only a very few squash bugs. I don't know if I will plant a fall garden. Dad has sold his ranch and we are going to be super busy helping him get ready to move. (Anybody know of a good assisted living place in Tulsa?) Besides now that we plant cool weather greens in the greenhouse in October to eat on all winter there isn't as much need to plant them in the garden. Plus, I learned several years ago that since I take thyroid medicine I shouldn't eat turnip and mustard greens every..single...day...for 6 weeks as they suppress thyroid function and make me tired and when the Dr increases the dosage and I quit eating them after a while I get too hyper and she has to decrease the dose again. "Be consistent!" she said. The Kentucky Red cowpeas I got from George several years ago are in full production. The nasty Japanese Beetles don't like them, preferring the Kentucky Wonder pole beans. Next year I will plant more KR and fewer KW. The 8 ft fence we built three years ago is still keeping the deer away from the okra and sweet potatoes and they are doing very well. UNfortunately the squirrels are still working the fruit. They didn't bother the Hosui Asian pears at all. I guess because they are so brown when ripe, they didn't know they were ripe. But they took half of the American pears and probably a third of the Yellow Delicious apples before they got fully ripe. So we picked them early, froze, dried and juiced some and saved a few to eat. And now to bed. Tomorrow we will pick okra and cherry tomatoes to dry and then attack the grass and weeds in the garden with a weedeater.

Thanks, NHBabs and defrost. Right now I feel like my brain is exploding regarding voles. I'm reading Ken Druse's book about shade gardening, which is fantastic and has me sooooo excited about my shade areas now. But, he talks about how earthworms are actually bad when they are numerous, only serving a good purpose if you have awful soil. Once the soil is decent they only consume organic material. He says voles eat earthworms, which is why it's good to have some in the garden. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! That was a big whine. Just as soon as I think I understand something... Confusion.