Hungry Invaders
Ways to gain control of garden critters.
One day, your vegetable garden is flourishing with young, green plants. The next day, it’s been decimated by some unseen force. Whether your garden is in the middle of the city or flush against the foothills, no gardener is completely immune to the ravages of rodents and other critters.
“As soon as you see signs of rodents, at the earliest stage, get on it,” says Pawl Hollis, owner of Rail City Garden Center in Sparks. “Don’t let them multiply. Every one of these animals is designed to have huge populations.”
In the Reno-Tahoe area, the main garden culprits are mice, voles, ground squirrels, marmots, rabbits, and pack rats. Occasionally, weasels, racoons, and skunks also will plunder a garden.
“The biggest complaints we get from customers are ground squirrels and rabbits,” Hollis says.
Tools for the Battle
Different animals require different tactics. When customers come into Rail City concerned about rodents and other critters attacking their gardens, Hollis will guide them to the bait-and-trap aisle, which he affectionately calls its “war department.”
Hollis says there are three methods you can use with animals. You can deter them by building raised beds and fences, repel them with chemicals and ultrasound devices, and eradicate them with traps and poisons.
Raised beds can be on the ground or set on blocks or stilts. Try stock tanks placed onto concrete blocks. Install hardware cloth underneath and around the ground beds to protect them from burrowing rodents. To deter rabbits, install a two-foot-high fence made of chicken wire or hardware cloth around each bed.
For repellents, Hollis recommends Plantskydd. This nontoxic formula was developed in Sweden and emits an odor that rodents associate with predators. It lasts several months and is safe for vegetable gardens and fruit trees.
As for traps, the Squirrelinator is one of the most effective eradicators. It’s a cage that traps squirrels alive. Relocating squirrels is illegal in most areas, so it is recommended that they be drowned in the cage. When setting bait for voles and squirrels, Hollis says, the bait should be placed in a station to keep it away from pets and children.
Rail City sells the entire arsenal, but Hollis also advocates for working with nature to keep rodents at bay. Putting out bird feeders will attract both birds and mice, but it also will attract birds of prey such as owls and hawks, who will be happy to hunt on your property.
Hollis also is a fan of raising chickens, which will naturally hunt small rodents such as mice and voles.
The Benevolent Gardener
Sage Tomita, garden manager for Soulful Seeds in Reno, also takes a gentler approach.
“I fully anticipate rodents coming into the garden, and I have not been successful building a garden to deter them, so what I will do is border my entire garden with lettuce,” Tomita says. “I find that a lot of the time, if they have easy pickings up front, they don’t come in as far.”
Soulful Seeds is a nonprofit dedicated to reducing food insecurity by developing and managing urban gardens. Urban critters in Reno primarily include ground squirrels and marmots.
Tomita doesn’t use sprays, poisons, or baits in any of his gardens. The only traps he uses are cinch-style traps, which are placed in the tunnels of burrowing rodents such as voles and gophers. If it’s feasible, he also recommends a good rodent-hunting dog.
“If all else fails and your garden is getting rampaged, put out substantially large feeders away from your garden and fill them up with birdseed, peanuts, and corn,” Tomita says. “Instead of fighting them to stay out of one area, make one area so attractive that they will stay away from your garden.”
RESOURCES
Rail City Garden Center
Railcitygardencenter.com
Soulful Seeds
Soulfulseedsnevada.org
For gardening classes, visit the TMCC community education programs catalogue.
Sites.tmcc.edu/flipbook/epic/2025/summer
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