Gophers or moles. Where are you located? If you have gophers or moles in your area this is what is happening. I can't tell you the lengths my parents have had to go to, to grow a garden successfully in the area they live in due to these creatures.

There are many things you can do if this is your problem but it is not pretty or cheap.

If there are not gophers or moles in your area then I'm stumped.

Good luck!

I fed voles in my garden about 50 pepper plants and countless sunflowers. Do you have any tunnels? I hate those little demon voles.

I never knew this could happen. Yikes! Where do the plants go? And what do the moles, etc do with them? I'm envisioning Caddyshack...

Kim

gophers,moles,voles your guys are crazy. its bigfoot they love tomatoes. you need to get a taller fence.imo

If they are small seedlings, keep your eyes on the birds, especially the bluejays. I've watched these birds pull up my pepper plants and fly away with them. They also seem to like to snap off the buds of the peppers leaving them on the ground near the plant.

Check your neighbors garden. They may be there. LOL.
Marv

Banannas, that is hilarious! I would have never thought to do that. I've only ever seen one vole, dead, and a few moles here and there around the yard. Never any other problems of that scale. Have you considered those underground things that produce vibrations? Not sure if they work or not, but they claim to scare things like that away. Your problem reminds me of a really funny book called 'the $64 tomato'. Same kind of thing.

Kim

Moles eat grubs, voles eat the plants- roots and all. Best solution I've had success with is mouse traps. Baiting with apples or beets works best for me.
Set the trap right at the last hole the vole has made. It works well to stabalize the trap with a long nail going through the trap extending into the ground. I like the old fashioned mouse traps as opposed to the new yellow plastic baited ones. Set several traps and rebate each evening. I caught 6 in one week in my broccoli bed.
Happy Hunting!

Oh I didn't say they were eating the plants I just said that they can be a source of disappearing vegetation. The county my parents live in just released that voles have become a problem in last few years traveling in the same tunnels as the moles. Mole yes are not omnivores but will sometimes eat roots but mostly they just tear things up.

Yes, whack-a-mole was a great way for us country kids to get out our aggression and benefit my father. Even a few of our friends parents started doing this as well. After we had got them all we would then have a mud football game in what would be our planted garden a few days later.

He was good at coming up with ideas like this. He also sent us out starting in October to hunt the wild turkey on our land with sling shots under the guise that we were catching the Thanksgiving feast. Years later we found out that we never ate any of those birds (mostly because we found out the hard way that they taste terrible) and that it was a way for my dad to get us to keep them off the property instead of him having to do it. And I think get us out of his hair for an hour or two.

The turkeys are an organic control for insects and welcome in my garden.

I use peanut butter or peanuts with the shells on them in mouse traps to catch moles, voles, and field mice. Works on chipmunks too. I put them in an empty jar, preferably a clear jar but you can use a can too. Cut a hole in the lid if it is big. The jar/can will keep other critters from walking away with the traps.

Peanut butter may attract ants to steal the bait. The shell nuts seem to last longer.

btw - moles also eat earthworms too. That is why they like the garden.

Good Luck

Peanut butter won't catch moles. Field mice and voles are the same critter.

-"Field mice and voles are the same critter."
Not that I am aware. Voles stay in the ground, mice will go anywhere dry. Tho Mice will use the same tunnels as moles, voles, and chipmunks. Visually they are different also. Maybe you can link to a picture?

Peanut butter attracts way too many things. I don't know how peanuts can be grown without rodents.

It's not a picture but here's a fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_mouse

I'm sure there can be conflicting info found on the subject on the WWW as with anything else.

NOW I understand. I don't use wiki anything because they allow anyone to post anything they want. For all I know that could be your entry.

son fwiw the voles mentioned in this post don't have eyes. Did I miss the picture in your wiki?

"...they allow anyone to post anything they want."

Not true. Wickipedia has an elaborate process of feedback and refinement of its content, unlike this site, where anyone can post anything they want.

Jim

Ok so even if I concede that to some mice and moles might mean the same thing, it's not to me to some it may be. So what then? What is your point? Is it just something else to debate?

Hi! I bought a tomato plant about 4 in tall last night and placed it on a shelf in the garage. I went this morning to take it out to plant it and it vanished! No plant whatsoever, it was eaten to the soil level with no trace. So I do not think what happened to the first post was a big animal such as Gophers, moles, deer, birds or squirrels, because non of them could be in my garage last night. So I would like to re open this discussion again, it could be ants or other insect perhaps?

Mice?

when I was a boy we had gophers everywhere! We had fun in the summers by finding their holes in the lawn. We would plug up all but one with stones. The open hole we would put a fishing net over it and then fill the tunnel with water by running the garden hose into it. The gopher would swim out and into the net to be wacked with a baseball bat. Not quite wack-a-mole but wack-a-gopher?

How sad :(.