On Wed, 5 Nov 2014 19:10:36 -0500, songbird
wrote:

Brooklyn1 wrote:
...
All excellent suggestions. However even taking every precaution weeds
will come/gardening is work.

yep. i like to make the work as easy and
as multi layered as possible. the soil here
really can use all the organic materials i can
put down.


Also I once had the not so bright idea
to cover large sections of my garden with cardboard and to leave it
over winter... made a wonderful home for voles... among other plants
they ate the roots on my blueberry bushes and rug junipers... got all
the blueberries to heal but for three, the once gorgeous rug junipers
are no more. For mulching a vegetable garden I strongly suggest weed
block cloth, voles don't seem to find it attractive to make their
homes, but they love cardboard and they also like wood chips
especially pine bark nuggets. Once the subteranean critters establish
a home they don't like to move and I refuse to use poison... sometimes
pouring ordinary household ammonia into their entries repels them but
not permanently.

once in a while i'll see a vole, but not that
often, instead we have a good population of chipmunks
and mice around and that seems to keep the feral
cats and the neighbor's outdoor cats well fed.

I have indoor cats but I have a whole community of ferral cats that I
feed in my barn, mostly they prefer what they kill, most won't eat cat
food. They live in my barn because I supply heated houses, it gets
down into the minus twentys and thirties here in winter. Heating the
houses costs very little (40 watts) but the heat keeps them alive...
and I make sure there is always food and water... I have heated water
bowls too. Today I set up a second heated house. The population is
growing. I trap as many as I can and bring them to the Vet to be
fixed but most can't be caught. The cats are left behind when summer
people leave, they leave dogs too but dogs have very poor survival
skills so don't last long. The cats are much better at surviving and
form communities. Most of the locals feed the feral cats, this is a
farming commuity, the cats earn their keep.