Sounds like a really cool title for a children's book. I'd say you have VOLES, my dear. When you water or it rains, they will tunnel through the soft earth, munching on your plant's roots. Moles and gophers and shrews (and snakes of all kinds), use their nifty tunnels to get around your yard subteranean - like a handy-dandy animal subways. Crickets use them, earthworms, and slugs, too, and lots of other critters. Some good for your garden and some that don't seem to be so good. I've lost tuberose salvias and my favorite tea roses; tulips and petunias, even cactus roots. If its edible, they will eat it! I've tried various things, like tarpaper collars around my roses and concrete or rock barriers, even strips of sheet metal buried around them. The tarpaper worked pretty good until it disentigrated, but eventually, mice burrowed through it and then it rotted to dirt. Flooding does no good, as those tunnels are hundreds of feet long. Those holes will never fill completely up. I've tried it. :) If you have a serious vole (or other rodent) problem, like I do, your yard may be completely undermined with tunnels that links with your neighbor's, and their neighbor's, and so on...hence you may find a flower in your yard (or weed) that you didn't plant or never saw before. Birds can bring carry them in or deposit them in your garden, via their poop, that's true, but so can rodents. Rodents carry seeds back and forth through those tunnels to and from your place. Keeping things in balance with Nature is what works best for me. If we can stop fighting all the elements of nature and work with it, we will get better results and enjoy gardening even more. I sink bottomless buckets in the ground for barriers for my big lilies, around berry bushes and roses, and even some of my garden plants, like my tomatoes, and that works really great. For shallow rooted plants that send out roots horizontally, these don't work so well. Planting daffodils, irises, liriope (Monkey grass), garlic, zinnias and stinky marigolds around the borders of my flower beds and/or around blueberry bushes, roses and strawberry beds, even apple trees, is about the only things I've done that works relatively well for an indefinite period of time, without killing the beneficial micro-organisms in the soil and harming animals like shrews and earthworms and preditory insects and snakes. Garlic really does a great job warding off rodents from my roses and they both mutually benefit from one another. Daffodils, irises, and liriope are poisonous so rodents just don't dig 'em. I think we gardeners and farmers will always have our challenges, but isn't that what makes our successes so awesome! ~ SweetAnnie4u

It is clear it is high time a manufacturers make mouse proof slide in ranges! Everyone says you can't keep them out of your house, though I have hired an exterminator and for now, they have stopped. I have talked to neighbors and friends who all retain exterminators year round, for this purpose. I just bought a 20 year old house in April and in November the mice moved in so quickly, even tho I got an exterminator, they ruined my dishwasher, chewing the wires underneath, and my range/oven, invading all parts of that. I have plugged all visible holes in cabinets and walls, with steel wool, and that has stopped those access points, but now, I must undertake a partial kitchen remodel, to find the other holes, before I replace the appliances! Also shopping appliances which have more protection from mice. Ultimate solution seems to be a wall oven and cook top, as they are enclosed in cabinetry. but yes power and gas lines would have to be cut in cabinet/wall so tightly fitted so as not to allow 1/4" hole for mice. As for dishwashers, there are a few brands that cabinet the underside and don't leave it open for mice to play in the wires, Bosch is one. Same with ranges. I have found a couple of European brands that have less holes in the back. My current brand, GE duel fuel, is like it was made to be a climbing toy for mice! They love the range. there are lots of ways through it for a mouse. So next range will be European or wall oven and cooktop. These solutions are twice as expensive, not counting the cabinet remodel. That is why I think is time for manufacturers to at least TRY to make these kitchen products mouse proof. Yes, I am throwing away the old ones, such a waste, totally not green. I did find one resource which showed putting rat wire, less than 1/4" mesh wire, over the one opening along the bottom of the rear of a European range, where that was the ONLY opening. I am planning to do that, but the range must vent, so don't use foil! I am planning to purchase the most enclosed range I can find. Then, yes, the suggestion of how clean you must keep things, cleaning the grates and range top and oven, every time you use it, and all crumbs off your floors, and counters, and even taking out the trash every night. they are nocturnal, so doing this before dark, is a good practice. Less attractants, has to help. Nothing to eat, should help.

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Mickey with a bad case of acne. Dave