Kitchen Garden Forum

Can anyone give me advice as to what may be creating holes like the one shown in my attached photo. There are about three such holes in my veg raised beds in addition to a couple in my adjacent greenhouse. There has been a mole in the raised beds before now but not sure they create "hill-less" holes. Thanks!

Fieldmice or bank voles, Helen? They certainly dig similar holes in search for food, peas or beans for instance, though your crop looks like lettuce.

Evening Helen, we have the same thing on our allotment, "something has taken over the old mole runs". I would say it is either mice or voles. They are a bit of a pain, as the keep nibbling the young pea shoots off.

I agree voles. Hope you aren't growing strawberries, they love them. Found a big one stuck in a hole entrance one day that it hadn't managed to pull underground. If you start losing stuff you'll have to resort to careful trapping.

I hate to tell you this, but those are exactly the type of holes that the moles leave in my garden! For years, based on everything I read, I thought it must be voles or something similar, but the 18 moles I caught last year and the 4 (or 5 - I'm losing track now) so far this year have well and truly destroyed that theory.

Mine don't leave hills either. I think it must be something to do with the soil type - we have very light, quite sandy but very stony soil, and they seem to be able to displace it to make their tunnels without having to resort to hills.