I'm so sorry that happened and know how you feel. I have a problem with voles. Two years ago I noticed the beets and carrots looked like they needed water. Turned out voles had tunneled underground and eaten all the bottoms. I have the animal repellant spray (coyote urine I think) to use but not sure it will help with voles. It should help with deer. Our first year here the deer ate one variety of hostas. The deer are still around but generally don't come into the garden. I also have brazen chipmunks that eat things planted near the house (like all the ground cherries I planted one year). Last year my fall broccoli was under garden fabric in my high tunnel. When I went to harvest, all the heads were gone so I suspect mice and voles. I guess I always hope I have enough to share even though I don't like sharing ... or maybe sharing would be ok if the furry bastids did share and didn't eat ALL my broccoli.

Thank you both. I do have a fence. Deer are not the problem. It's the small buggers. I have done everything in my life to catch, trap, shoot, deter these plant eating, tick carrying pains in my butt. I have stopped growing things I have no control over and started going weekly to the farmers market. Somehow, shopping for local organic veggies is much more relaxing than finding my plants eaten by rodents. I'm tired.

I have to get an electric fence out there. The fence I have has chicken wire at the bottom and along the ground but that does absolutely nothing. Do I have to cover everything with row covers? Pick off every single bad bug? Set traps everyday?

What do you tell yourself to keep from crying and giving up? Maybe it's time to pay someone to come weekly to do some of the work. I already have a yard/mower guy but I don't trust that he knows how to garden, from what I've seen.

My garden has always been my sanctuary, my pleasure, my relaxation. Now it's a source of heartache, physical pain, and frustration. I also have Lyme, chronic lyme, from the ticks on the rodents, which adds paranoia to the feelings.

Susan, same thing here with my spinach. We have no deer or rabbit problems, I'm sure what has happened is some kind of bug or caterpiller, the leaves are full of holes. It looks like cabbage worms, but can't find any sign of anything. This is the first time in 50 years I have had anything happen to my spinach. I did manage to have a few salads before disaster struck, but I am like you I hate daily bug patrol. Somebody suggested wireworms, but I thought they lived in the ground. I am devastated. I have a feeling we could be the same age, I am 84.

I use a cheap fencing bent into a hoop to enclose my winter spinach, it works well for deer and rabbits. One long piece with the ends covered with some scrap pieces. This plot is surrounded with ele fencing too but deer can hop over it.

Flowergirl, I'm a lot younger than you but this Lyme disease makes me feel 90. I hope I'm still here and gardening at 84! Wow. That's something. My long ago neighbor gardened into her 90's. Her garden was mostly weeds but she managed to clear space for each plant she wanted to grow. She walked bent over.

I just called a fencing company to redo my fence with updated varmint control (electric wires and quarter inch hardware on the bottom.) I know what I want now. Looking forward to that. I put row cover fabric over the spinach while muttering how much easier it is to buy the spinach. Wire screen is a good idea, too.

As I lay in my fantastic hammock, I thought about what I love and need about gardening. I am pulled to it. I love the feel of soil in my hands. I read that soil bacteria are good for you. I love smoothing over the soil and planting. I love cutting flowers, especially scented flowers, and bringing them indoors. Of course I love eating while in there, right off the plants. So I don't think I will ever stop gardening. I just need a place to vent about the frustrations.

Good points Susan! Sometimes all we can control is our personal mindset. So I keep reminding myself that pests are just another part of gardening, just other creatures trying to survive and doing what come naturally for them.

We do what we can to limit their access to the garden (and to us) and have to accept sharing what they get anyway or we take all the fun out of outdoors and gardening. After 76 years of it I simply refuse to let them get me down if for no other reason than I am bigger than they are. ;-)

Dave

Part of the fun of gardening is outsmarting the #%$@# Varmints ;-)

We don't grow corn because it's easier and fewer headaches to buy from a local farmer. Raccoons were smarter than us. So I think not growing certain things might be a good idea (let the voles starve). But last I was heartbroken when striped cucumber beetles ate our winter squash seedlings while we were on vacation. It was too late to start more plants. I hope to be more vigilant this year and use row cover until the plants get really big. That worked fine one year that I did it. I had a very excellent pepper crop although oddly enough, something liked eating hot peppers but I didn't mind losing a few of those.