Kitchen Garden Forum

The *&^$$^ mice have eaten through every thing that has an edible seed. Sweet Peas......cucumber in my allotment greenhouse. Any ideas to prevent them doing this??

Apart from regular trapping for a few weeks before seed sowing, it's a real struggle to stop them...maybe someone will have a foolproof idea though...very frustrating indeed, Compo.

Sow them indoors?

I get mice eating the bird feed in winter - they have to live too. But they do make a mess! It's never just one hole in a bag, each bag becomes a collander!

Combo, presumably you mean the mice eat the seeds AFTER they have been sown? I found that our very prickly hawthorn cuttings keep them away to some extent but certainly not completely.

Monica a cotlydon is the swollen seed that the shoot is attached to. It is good food to mice and that is what they eat. What you find is plant shoots littered on the surface of the seed trays

Here is a potential solution, I am trying to post a pic. i have wrapped the seed tray in scaffolding netting and hung it in the roof of the green house till the seeds get going

I will try and post a pic

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It should work, Compo, I think I have mentioned on here before, that all the farmers used to hang their hessian sacks on a beam, like that...

Ok. Well we will see. Im currently lurking in the workshop at home having a dam good tidy.

that all the farmers used to hang their hessian sacks on a beam, like that...

When I was young, my parents hung the walnuts in the attic like that. The mice still got to them. (timber attic, the mice may not manage the aluminium)

Well it is the very best I can come up with right now.. any better ideas certainly welcome

Be warned they will have courgette and pumpkin seedlings too. There is hanging brackets available for greenhouse shelves which will make it very hard for the meeces to gain access. Two Wests and Elliot do them.
Regards Sally Wright.

Oh yes they have had sweet peas , cukes, beans ....the lot!!
Ill be resowing later and fashioning a 'high up' propagation system. Necessary faffing!!

Compo I started a little earlier & the wee things just took & took every seed off the seedlings I had - 3 times! Obvs they are lazy guys as I had softened it for them, but I was gutted! I just couldn't be bothered anymore & left the little green shoots of my broad beans where they fell! But a week later while sitting down I noted those wee seedlings were still green so straightened them up & thought why not! They are in flower!

Must have been some micro wee roots maybe that survived - I might have got lucky but wonder if anyone could confirm at what stage in growth we could sacrifice the seed (a long way away for the mice), so the micro roots will be able to support the plant? Just one of those thoughts that jump into my brain - haven't a clue but you guys are clever & this might be the solution to a common problem!

Interesting.....thankfully my second batch are doing ok - suspended high in the greenhouse and wrapped in scaffolding netting.. fingers crossed!!