2years ago ost all my sweet potatoes to something eating them so last year I grew them in a metal raised bed and put hard wear cloth under it and it worked great this year also, no bites.
I grow in large grow bags and in the ground. I have had them discover the grow bags, but never in the ground. I plant the slips in a row between where the landscape fabric strips meet and keep them tight with the lawn staples. There are a lot less weeds compared to holes.
I live in central Illinois. Mice will get into my sweet potatoes with or without the fabric. I feel the sweet potatoes get bigger without the fabric. I harvest earlier to try to get them out before they find them too much. It can be discouraging. Hang in there, there is next year.
Several years ago I had the best sweet potato harvest ever, unfortunately the voles got to a lot of it before I did, lol. Even with an outside cat, voles can be pretty subterranean, enough survive. I did a perimeter baiting of the garden with tamperproof bait stations that fall and wiped most of them out. Maintaining the bait stations working to this day. Stay Well!!!
Found three mice in our raised garden beds when we harvested a whole bunch of sweet potatoes! We do have barn cats, and that helps! A couple were nibbled on, but I agree about just cutting that part off and enjoying the rest!
Sorry for your loss with your sweet potato crop. In Oklahoma, I grow sweet potatoes in in about 3ft deep metal raised beds with a metal bottom. It's one of my crops that doesn't face pest problems.
Hey Rachel. Terrible little beasties!! I use weed fabric BUT not for any root vegetables. Beets, carrots potatoes too- anything that produces under ground has their own ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET. It does help with weeds, I only plant my corn, tomatoes and the like in fabric holes. With the potatoes, etc - I plant the bed, or rows and run thinner strips of weed fabric between the beds, helps cut down weeds but things to grow not contained ,, 3rd year doing it and it works great. 👍 maybe try that dear
For my raised beds I got a soaker hose for $20 and watered for 45 min through the weed fabric on top. I could see the water filtering through the bottom of the beds. I could also see water filtering through the bottom while it rained too.
Sorry for your loss there I've had great success in deep raised beds. They are 4x4 I have 4 of them and I harvested 110 lbs this year I grew Georgia jet for the first time and I got some crazy huge football sized sweet potatoes I'm zone 6a. I had zero pest damage.
Can you detail what a deep raised bed is? Wooden sides or just raised soil area? How deep is the soil? I am a great potato grower, but would LOVE to grow sweet potatoes! I have tried and failed , also zone 6a
One way I found to control mice in the garden is to put chickens in the garden during the off season. They will catch the mice. Farm cats are also helpful.
I haven't tried to grow any type of squash for 3 years because I got so overwhelmed with squash bugs the first year I grew them. Today, I learned a lesson from you, grow much more, then I will hopefully have some me. I thank you for that lesson.
I have the greenhouse nkw because my back doesnt like me working on the ground. I love to garden though I have used the fabic for years and never had an issue. All of my potaoes this year were in grow bags. They are awesome.
So sad, I am so sorry that this happened to your favorite food. I think you may be right about the landscaping cloth. May you have a better crop of sweet potatoes next year.❤❤
Thanks Rachel. I so appreciate your conversation of reasoning the harvest. Every gardener can identify with a failure of some crop. I love how you handle it. I purchased a 40# box the other day from Amish store in Indiana and were the best I’ve ever eaten. From Missouri I’m looking for ways to preserve. I’ll try the freezing for roasting. Thought I’d also freeze then mashed Have a great week
I use several mouse bait stations and place under my sweet potato plants to reduce damage to my sweet potatoes. I have mice and voles that empty the bait stations every few days but my sweet potatoes are not eaten. We plant 100 plants every summer.
Oh Rachel I’m so very sorry for the damage to your sweet potatoes. I know from prior videos how much you love to harvest them. I’m sorry you were robbed of some of your joy. 😞
We have voles and moles that do that, but the mice usually only eat what is above ground. It's up to whomever how they want to take care of the situation.
So sad to see you so despondent today Rachel. Would love to see you back in the garden more next summer and seeing you more in the kitchen even if it is a repeat of something you have made as I know I always pick up something new. Looking forward also to your Christmas creations.
we had the same rodent problem in our sweet potato bed. one of the issues you just have to live with when growing your own food. what sweet potatoes you got looked pretty good though. better luck for both of us next year!
I have voles that chew my potatoes and sweet potatoes and the damage looks just like that. To confirm look for their trails this winter they are very distinct looking.
I feel that landscape fabric is best used for only certain crops like peppers, okra and tomatoes, etc. The way sweet potatoes grow I can’t imagine using it for them or even regular potatoes.
Rachel, I think you’re right about the landscape fabric providing a home for the mice. We covered our garden beds last winter for the first time. There was nothing planted-just covering the soil-but mice made their home there. I really didn’t like it at all. I won’t be covering my soil again.
So dang sorry, Rachel! I grew sweet potatoes for the first time this year and fortunately didn't have critters feast on them. You took it like a pro, Gal!
I grew sweet potatoes this year and harvested 26 pounds from 4 slips. There is always next year. I tried them two ways. One in grow pots and the second in ground. The in ground did the best.
Even though the sweet potatoes are smaller. They're going to be delicious and may even appreciate them when you go to use them. Even cutting them will be easier
We put baking soda mixed with flour or corn meal in little containers around the garden. Rodents eat it and die. No other animals or insects are impacted. We had mice damage first year which caused us to develop this strategy. No mice damage this year.
That is sad :( Voles are our little pest that come out of the ground But thankfully they didn't get more them over ripe tomatoes. I grew S P for first time up here in north WI in a small little raised bed. 3 slips, that's all I could get off my sweet potato. The plants were beautiful and fun to watch grow! But when I harvested at end of September, I only had a small harvest. But they were tasty after a 2 week curing time. Next year I am going to grow them in one my 17 inch high raised beds. And hopefully a much better crop. I grew my carrots in a high bed and best carrot harvest so far! (and onions ) I was just getting to old for in ground anymore, so 12 high beds now and I love it! So sorry you had critters stealing your favorite crop. :(
As someone who has been using Dewitt Sunbelt fabric and multiple zone drip tape since 2018, it is absolutely fantastic. However, I do not use it for potatoes or sweet potatoes. In fact, I have gone to large raised beds for them because of moles. I have 2 separate 100 x 264 gardens with the fabric. A 4-inch hole is all you need. Once you pull a plant, cover the hole with plastic, or I have strips cut from old fabric to cover hole after harvest. I also have a 1 acre tomato plot that I used the biodegradable corn starch plastic like mulch Fabric or biodegradable mulch is the only way for me to make market gardening enjoyable.
The thing about using more natural method, like Ruth Stout, is that you can pull the hay aside and shake things up, or just look to see what's happening. I have used landscape fabric without much success, and ended up passing it along to someone who really uses it and likes it, and I've not missed it at all! I think you're on the right track with growing in a more natural way. If you're comfortable slicing off the bad parts, I see it as your kitchen, your rule kind of thing. Sorry about the sweet potato harvest, Rachel--the ones you got were beautiful! 🌻
I garden in south central Michigan. I’ve grown sweet potatoes both under fabric and with mulch only with varmint damage most years. The damaged areas heal over incredibly well. My very best harvest was the year I used fabric (1st year for new garden space). The last 2 years had small potatoes and overall harvest because of deer and woodchucks constantly eating all their foliage. I can only fix my attitude on thankfulness for the harvest I do manage to collect. Good luck with carrots. I had a large number of my late harvest that were chewed on worse than my potatoes.
We’re dealing with voles in our lawn. It’s no longer safe to walk across because of all the little holes. We were told to fertilize our grass for winter with a weed and feed because they don’t like that and we’ll do the same in the spring. I hope it works!
Wonder if the mice were after the water content of the potatoes? I love the landscape fabric...or the idea of it. I've learned two things about using it here. 1. As soon as I put a hole in it. I'm growing more weed than food. 2. Fireants LOVE weed fabric and it's warmth and protection. Never again.
Oh My Rachel. So sorry about your sweet potato 🥔🍠. This really was a bomber. Mice will be mice and find what to eat from any garden. I feel so bad for you. But next time do it the way you like it. No more landscape fabric. You can even use cardboard. Think about it Rachel. Hay is another one too. God Bless you Rachel. Let's try better next year. HUGS 🤗 my friend. Mari'a. 👍👍👍👍👍🍠🥔🍠🥔🍠🥔🤗❤️🤗❤️🤗❤️💜💕💙🍁🍂🍁🍂
Wondering if making long hilled rows would help? I watch Simple a living Alaska and they grow potato’s like that. Of course they are like zone 3 and heavily amend . You could sprinkle some repels around for mice. Worked great for me with moles, mice and chipmunks. I use the pellets and sprinkle it about once a month. Also, grow mint somewhere and throw trimmings around.
I lost so much produce to wildlife this year. It’s the worst feeling to put in all that work and not be able to harvest. Sorry u missed out on your favorites 💜
I am so sorry Rachel! May have to harvest potatoes yet, I better get that job done! My neighbor veggie farmer had sweet potatoes that I received. They are so good! But not as big as yours. I’m glad you got some!
This is the first year I've had the same issue with mice/rodents eating my sweet potatoes (SW MO) and I did not have landscape fabric or any kind of ground cover over mine. I had two of the big water totes that were up on rollers, maybe 3' from the ground to the top and with just a few watering holes in the bottom and the mice even got in there and ate the sweet potatoes. I'm thinking since the larger potatoes were the ones mostly destroyed and the smaller ones were ok, next year I'm going to start digging around after about 60 days from planting and try to harvest the mature potatoes sooner and leave the smaller ones and let them grow since I didn't find as much damage on the smaller potatoes as I did the larger ones.
We have really bad moles/voles here in the Adirondacks. We have tried the solar buzzers that stick into the ground and we didn't see much of a change if we don't use a fair amount. They live under our chicken coop, under our rabbit colony hutch, but what really upset me this year was they finally found our garden where we didn't have any ground buzzers. They are so destructive.
With voles, anything not protected with 1/4 inch wire mesh cage is there's rased bed, in ground ,compost pile, hay bail , ground cover, or mulch. They devastated my potatoes, sweet potatoes, and squash 😢.
So sorry Rachel. We had mice in our garden this year. They would eat some of our tomatoes and leave little droppings inside of the tomatoes. Plus we had a bunny somehow get into our garden. I planted beans three times, but never got any beans. I guess I fed the wildlife this year. At the end of the season the mice ate our pumpkins too. 🤷🏻♀️ Our garden has a fence, but the critters are sneaky!
A lot of folks had that very same problem with the mice getting the sweet potatoes, I grew mine in some large pots that our apple tree's came in and had great success, so I ordered some 10 gallon grow bags, and wish I had gotten the 15-20 gallon ones but they will work for me. I think that's the trick to keep those pesky mice at bay, Hopefully.
Rachel this is the first year I had an issue with hawks. As of right now we had 3 of our white chickens attacked and none of our other ones. Anyways to tell you put your chickens in your garden and the voles and the mice will start to disappear. When we first bought our property we had an infestation of them white grubs after letting our chickens in our garden A lot of them issues went away. We have tilled every year which might help in that matter also. I think your landscape fabric might be good for other vegetables maybe lettuce or cabbage
I think you should dump the landscape fabric and then consider getting a barn cat next spring. We have always had at least one cat but now that our only cat is 20 years old and not going outside, I've suddenly had rodent problems. Lots of them. We'll be getting a young cat next year. 💚
It was a season of experimentation and the outcome is that landscape fabric isn't a fit in your garden. I am happy that you still have enough sweet potatoes for yourself and Todd. Hope that 2025 finds you with a plentiful garden!! 😊
I grew mine in some medium sized grow bags this year in Oklahoma. I didn’t have drip irrigation, and we had a drought, and the deer came and ate off the tops in July maybe. We got some super small sweet potatoes but there were some that actually grew under the grow bag in the native soil. Our mice problem actually took out 6 out of 7 of my roselle hibiscus in the raised bed right next to the sweet potatoes. Maybe it was the landscape fabric. 🤷♀️ my sweet potatoes didn’t have mice damage at all.
I have all raised beds and farm ground around me in all four directions. We have some terrible mice years. Last year not so bad, this year kinda. I have advanced to raising my sweet potatoes and regular potatoes in cattle lick tubs. I have been getting fabulous results. The mice will get into where ever they want to go. I have problems with moles in my beds with tomato plants. Curing that problem this coming year.
Speaking of mice. I am storing 50# flour then rolled oats as oatmeal both in 2 Rubbermaid totes but in the garage to stay cold. Do you think mice with eat thru the totes?
Some sort of rodent got into my sweet potatoes this year too, in raised beds! In a fenced in garden! I think it was rabbits. We still had a great harvest though!
We live in farm country, so if we don’t aggressively trap for mice and voles all season, there won’t be anything left for us, no matter how much we plant. Just gotta manage your pests in the garden the way you would in the house, yk? It’s awful; I hate it because I’m sure they could be feeding some friendly snakes in the cornfields, but it’s a necessary evil here. So sorry your sweet potato harvest was a bit of a bust this year! ❤
I pulled all my acorn, butternut, spaghetti squash and buttercup, put them in my 3 sided garden shed to dry a little and about a week or so later a critter ate 3 butternut and was working on the buttercup. I brought the rest indoors. Mice, rats, squirrels are brats.
Time to get a cat 🐈 ❤ my bengal Kitties re great mousers, and they catch all the voles in horse pasture next door, too! No voles in m garden ever!!! ❤😂🎉
So sad and frustrating! I was unfortunate to have that happen to me one year. No ground cover either. Just one year...so far.. Out of about 5/6 years planting in the same garden too. Don't know why it happened. I haven't changed anything i was doing either.
I do not plant my sweet potatoes under fabric, just in raised beds. This year was the worst year ever for mice/voles eating my tubers. They munched on over half my crop. So sad!
Aw, that's a shame. I had a similar experience with potatoes this year...tried the Ruth Stout method and it apparently made a nice home for mice. Between the hollowed out potatoes and the ones that turned completely green from sunlight sneaking in, it wasn't a successful experiment. And I want to fire the feral cats who live on our property...they've grown old and lazy it seems, haha. Well, at least they leave the birds alone too.
Ours got eaten on too just like yours! We only ended up getting a handful of sweet potatoes and it was the first year they had been eaten on. Wondering if I should plant in a different place next year.
@@sheliaheverin8822 I got some of the plastic ones and I got 3-4 voles over the summer, but there was too much food and ants were eating my bait. I'm putting the traps out during the winter when there's way fewer food options.
We had trouble with something eating our tomatoes. Hubby put a fence around but we think it was either ground hogs or chipmunks. Very disappointing...I feel for you.
Maybe the mice got the memo that you guys were cutting back on carbs and sugar. Darn those dirty rascals. My tomatoes were like that this year. One bite or peck from a bird in like 20 tomatoes ugh!
I'm sorry about your harvest getting eaten! It's so disheartening to lose a crop to pests that was clearly growing so well. We used landscape fabric in our in-ground garden pathways this year to prevent weeds, and I have seen rats and voles both run out of my garden beds with full mouths and hide under the fabric. I had three garden beds planted with peanuts, and when I came to harvest them I found almost no nuts and just piles of shells tucked under the fabric. We have had more harvest from one bed in previous years without the fabric, than we had in three beds this year. I am convinced the landscape fabric is to blame.
Rachel, Doug and Stacy had a video on recently called "Dead tomatoes." Maybe you should look at that. That is just too much damage to handle. Sorry I would not be able to do that. Best wishes ⚘️🙏🇿🇦🇺🇲
If you've been eating food after cutting off the bitten portion and your still alive and healthy, I wouldn't worry about other folks concerns. Thanks for the non-time lapsed video. Harvesting should be real time.❤
IDK if you have chipmunks where you are, but that was actually what was getting under our landscape fabric and wreaking havoc on our root vegetables. Particularly the sweet potatoes and beets. We did much better when we pulled up the landscape fabric for the root crops. That was when we were down in Tennessee.
My theory on the moles and voles is they went away in our area about 10 yrs ago. Because it WAS dry over the summers. Came back 3 years ago. Because it was wet over the summers. We just had a dry late summer and fall. Maybe they’ll go away again??
Sadly gophers, moles, and shrews will also chew like that. Sorry it happened though. I am in Indiana and that issue is why I have a greenhouse now with raised beds.
Country living! I had my entire garden destroyed overnight by a family of deer. I thought I had protected it well enough. Some times Mother Nature has other ideas.
Last year I thought I was having the best cantaloupe year, I had like 20 beautiful cantaloupes on the vine. When I went to harvest mice had eat all the flesh out! I was heartbroken. This year I planted garlic around them, and it seemed to help.
Heartbreaking video but thank you for sharing. I am not a fan of black plastic in any use. I would use a deep organic mulch to keep weeds down. Another thought was leaving them in the ground to harvest late. I have had rodents munch on white potatoes and blamed it on not harvesting soon enough. Also, we keep outdoor cats who do a great job on rodents and bunnies. They don’t actually kill them but scent the area and try to pounce on them so the rodents seem to just move away.
I prefer deep mulch. The sheep and rabbits are giving it away free. It also nourishes and protects the soil life. No rodents can use it to hide from the cats.
Oh no Rachel, so sorry. I feel so bad for you. We all seem to have at least one loss in the garden, it’s still sad when it happens. Hopefully the little critters appreciate the feed they had and leave your carrots alone. Keep smiling Rachel 💖
I've used landscape fabric now for over 4 years and have never had any problem with mice. And, most market gardeners use it so? I'm just a bit north of you here in Michigan, closer to Detroit but you do live in a pretty rural area so maybe the mice are more prevalent. From what I've seen of your videos, you haven't been too excited to use landscape fabric so I wonder why you did. I like it, it holds back the weeds and that saves me a lot of hassle. For each their own but I'm not so sure it's the LF that has caused your sweet potato problem. Maybe rescue some cats? :)
2years ago ost all my sweet potatoes to something eating them so last year I grew them in a metal raised bed and put hard wear cloth under it and it worked great this year also, no bites.
I grow in large grow bags and in the ground. I have had them discover the grow bags, but never in the ground. I plant the slips in a row between where the landscape fabric strips meet and keep them tight with the lawn staples. There are a lot less weeds compared to holes.
I live in central Illinois. Mice will get into my sweet potatoes with or without the fabric. I feel the sweet potatoes get bigger without the fabric. I harvest earlier to try to get them out before they find them too much. It can be discouraging. Hang in there, there is next year.
Several years ago I had the best sweet potato harvest ever, unfortunately the voles got to a lot of it before I did, lol. Even with an outside cat, voles can be pretty subterranean, enough survive.
I did a perimeter baiting of the garden with tamperproof bait stations that fall and wiped most of them out. Maintaining the bait stations working to this day.
Stay Well!!!
Found three mice in our raised garden beds when we harvested a whole bunch of sweet potatoes! We do have barn cats, and that helps! A couple were nibbled on, but I agree about just cutting that part off and enjoying the rest!
Sorry for your loss with your sweet potato crop. In Oklahoma, I grow sweet potatoes in in about 3ft deep metal raised beds with a metal bottom. It's one of my crops that doesn't face pest problems.
Hey Rachel. Terrible little beasties!! I use weed fabric BUT not for any root vegetables. Beets, carrots potatoes too- anything that produces under ground has their own ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET. It does help with weeds, I only plant my corn, tomatoes and the like in fabric holes. With the potatoes, etc - I plant the bed, or rows and run thinner strips of weed fabric between the beds, helps cut down weeds but things to grow not contained ,, 3rd year doing it and it works great. 👍 maybe try that dear
For my raised beds I got a soaker hose for $20 and watered for 45 min through the weed fabric on top. I could see the water filtering through the bottom of the beds. I could also see water filtering through the bottom while it rained too.
Sorry for your loss there I've had great success in deep raised beds. They are 4x4 I have 4 of them and I harvested 110 lbs this year I grew Georgia jet for the first time and I got some crazy huge football sized sweet potatoes I'm zone 6a. I had zero pest damage.
Can you detail what a deep raised bed is? Wooden sides or just raised soil area?
How deep is the soil? I am a great potato grower, but would LOVE to grow sweet potatoes! I have tried and failed , also zone 6a
4x4 but how deep?
One way I found to control mice in the garden is to put chickens in the garden during the off season. They will catch the mice. Farm cats are also helpful.
It's a vole mast year, a super abundance of them this year across the country. Time to put up kestrel and barn owl boxes around the property.
I haven't tried to grow any type of squash for 3 years because I got so overwhelmed with squash bugs the first year I grew them. Today, I learned a lesson from you, grow much more, then I will hopefully have some me. I thank you for that lesson.
I have the greenhouse nkw because my back doesnt like me working on the ground. I love to garden though
I have used the fabic for years and never had an issue. All of my potaoes this year were in grow bags. They are awesome.
So sad, I am so sorry that this happened to your favorite food. I think you may be right about the landscaping cloth. May you have a better crop of sweet potatoes next year.❤❤
Thanks Rachel. I so appreciate your conversation of reasoning the harvest. Every gardener can identify with a failure of some crop. I love how you handle it. I purchased a 40# box the other day from Amish store in Indiana and were the best I’ve ever eaten. From Missouri I’m looking for ways to preserve. I’ll try the freezing for roasting. Thought I’d also freeze then mashed Have a great week
I use several mouse bait stations and place under my sweet potato plants to reduce damage to my sweet potatoes. I have mice and voles that empty the bait stations every few days but my sweet potatoes are not eaten. We plant 100 plants every summer.
Great idea!
Oh Rachel I’m so very sorry for the damage to your sweet potatoes. I know from prior videos how much you love to harvest them. I’m sorry you were robbed of some of your joy. 😞
We have voles and moles that do that, but the mice usually only eat what is above ground. It's up to whomever how they want to take care of the situation.
BTW, we use weed fabric every year and love it.
So sad to see you so despondent today Rachel. Would love to see you back in the garden more next summer and seeing you more in the kitchen even if it is a repeat of something you have made as I know I always pick up something new. Looking forward also to your Christmas creations.
Or remember something I used to know!
Voles…. They got into mine last year and this year and I planted in bags!
we had the same rodent problem in our sweet potato bed. one of the issues you just have to live with when growing your own food. what sweet potatoes you got looked pretty good though. better luck for both of us next year!
I have voles that chew my potatoes and sweet potatoes and the damage looks just like that. To confirm look for their trails this winter they are very distinct looking.
I feel that landscape fabric is best used for only certain crops like peppers, okra and tomatoes, etc. The way sweet potatoes grow I can’t imagine using it for them or even regular potatoes.
I came here to say the same thing.
I like using landscape fabric, but I would not use it for root crops.
Rachel, I think you’re right about the landscape fabric providing a home for the mice. We covered our garden beds last winter for the first time. There was nothing planted-just covering the soil-but mice made their home there. I really didn’t like it at all. I won’t be covering my soil again.
So dang sorry, Rachel! I grew sweet potatoes for the first time this year and fortunately didn't have critters feast on them. You took it like a pro, Gal!
I grew sweet potatoes this year and harvested 26 pounds from 4 slips. There is always next year. I tried them two ways. One in grow pots and the second in ground. The in ground did the best.
We had a bad problem with voles this year as well…first time ever. They actually tore up two whole acres of ground.
Wow, that’s sad!
Even though the sweet potatoes are smaller. They're going to be delicious and may even appreciate them when you go to use them. Even cutting them will be easier
We put baking soda mixed with flour or corn meal in little containers around the garden. Rodents eat it and die. No other animals or insects are impacted. We had mice damage first year which caused us to develop this strategy. No mice damage this year.
Voles did that to my sweet potatoes one year and I did not have landscape fabric. I did mulch them.
That is sad :( Voles are our little pest that come out of the ground But thankfully they didn't get more them over ripe tomatoes. I grew S P for first time up here in north WI in a small little raised bed. 3 slips, that's all I could get off my sweet potato. The plants were beautiful and fun to watch grow! But when I harvested at end of September, I only had a small harvest. But they were tasty after a 2 week curing time. Next year I am going to grow them in one my 17 inch high raised beds. And hopefully a much better crop. I grew my carrots in a high bed and best carrot harvest so far! (and onions ) I was just getting to old for in ground anymore, so 12 high beds now and I love it! So sorry you had critters stealing your favorite crop. :(
Think that was a Rolling Stone song, you don’t always get what you want, but you get what you need. 😊
As someone who has been using Dewitt Sunbelt fabric and multiple zone drip tape since 2018, it is absolutely fantastic. However, I do not use it for potatoes or sweet potatoes. In fact, I have gone to large raised beds for them because of moles. I have 2 separate 100 x 264 gardens with the fabric. A 4-inch hole is all you need. Once you pull a plant, cover the hole with plastic, or I have strips cut from old fabric to cover hole after harvest.
I also have a 1 acre tomato plot that I used the biodegradable corn starch plastic like mulch
Fabric or biodegradable mulch is the only way for me to make market gardening enjoyable.
I hope this makes you feel better, bugs ate all but a pound of what should have been 250 lbs of potatoes in my garden this year.
I’ve found that landscape fabric is best for squash, tomatoes, peppers. And I space it so I can plant string beans in skinny rows. I love it!
And the mice were awful this year ! Lost my carrots, no landscape fabric.
The thing about using more natural method, like Ruth Stout, is that you can pull the hay aside and shake things up, or just look to see what's happening. I have used landscape fabric without much success, and ended up passing it along to someone who really uses it and likes it, and I've not missed it at all!
I think you're on the right track with growing in a more natural way. If you're comfortable slicing off the bad parts, I see it as your kitchen, your rule kind of thing. Sorry about the sweet potato harvest, Rachel--the ones you got were beautiful!
🌻
❤
I garden in south central Michigan. I’ve grown sweet potatoes both under fabric and with mulch only with varmint damage most years. The damaged areas heal over incredibly well. My very best harvest was the year I used fabric (1st year for new garden space). The last 2 years had small potatoes and overall harvest because of deer and woodchucks constantly eating all their foliage. I can only fix my attitude on thankfulness for the harvest I do manage to collect. Good luck with carrots. I had a large number of my late harvest that were chewed on worse than my potatoes.
Well, I’d rather eat a raw carrot than a raw potato too.
We’re dealing with voles in our lawn. It’s no longer safe to walk across because of all the little holes. We were told to fertilize our grass for winter with a weed and feed because they don’t like that and we’ll do the same in the spring. I hope it works!
I only grow sweet potatoes in grow bags because of voles. I can fit 3 to 5 slips per grow bag depending on the size of the bag. Works great for us!!
Wonder if the mice were after the water content of the potatoes? I love the landscape fabric...or the idea of it. I've learned two things about using it here. 1. As soon as I put a hole in it. I'm growing more weed than food. 2. Fireants LOVE weed fabric and it's warmth and protection. Never again.
Mice absolutely like to live under landscape fabric! So sorry that happened but the good ones you got will be very tasty
Oh My Rachel. So sorry about your sweet potato 🥔🍠. This really was a bomber. Mice will be mice and find what to eat from any garden. I feel so bad for you. But next time do it the way you like it. No more landscape fabric. You can even use cardboard. Think about it Rachel. Hay is another one too. God Bless you Rachel. Let's try better next year. HUGS 🤗 my friend. Mari'a. 👍👍👍👍👍🍠🥔🍠🥔🍠🥔🤗❤️🤗❤️🤗❤️💜💕💙🍁🍂🍁🍂
Wondering if making long hilled rows would help? I watch Simple a living Alaska and they grow potato’s like that. Of course they are like zone 3 and heavily amend . You could sprinkle some repels around for mice. Worked great for me with moles, mice and chipmunks. I use the pellets and sprinkle it about once a month. Also, grow mint somewhere and throw trimmings around.
Sorry about your sweet potatoes Rachel. 😢 I'm very proud of your attitude about it though. ❤
I lost so much produce to wildlife this year. It’s the worst feeling to put in all that work and not be able to harvest. Sorry u missed out on your favorites 💜
I am so sorry Rachel! May have to harvest potatoes yet, I better get that job done! My neighbor veggie farmer had sweet potatoes that I received. They are so good! But not as big as yours. I’m glad you got some!
This is the first year I've had the same issue with mice/rodents eating my sweet potatoes (SW MO) and I did not have landscape fabric or any kind of ground cover over mine. I had two of the big water totes that were up on rollers, maybe 3' from the ground to the top and with just a few watering holes in the bottom and the mice even got in there and ate the sweet potatoes. I'm thinking since the larger potatoes were the ones mostly destroyed and the smaller ones were ok, next year I'm going to start digging around after about 60 days from planting and try to harvest the mature potatoes sooner and leave the smaller ones and let them grow since I didn't find as much damage on the smaller potatoes as I did the larger ones.
I had one huge white sweet potato that was eaten from the top down, but it was so big that I still got 2 meals off it. The rat ate less than 2 inches.
We have really bad moles/voles here in the Adirondacks. We have tried the solar buzzers that stick into the ground and we didn't see much of a change if we don't use a fair amount. They live under our chicken coop, under our rabbit colony hutch, but what really upset me this year was they finally found our garden where we didn't have any ground buzzers. They are so destructive.
With voles, anything not protected with 1/4 inch wire mesh cage is there's rased bed, in ground ,compost pile, hay bail , ground cover, or mulch. They devastated my potatoes, sweet potatoes, and squash 😢.
I didn’t have landscape fabric last year. Same thing! I was so disgusted I fed them all to the cows. Even the good ones.
So sorry Rachel. We had mice in our garden this year. They would eat some of our tomatoes and leave little droppings inside of the tomatoes. Plus we had a bunny somehow get into our garden. I planted beans three times, but never got any beans. I guess I fed the wildlife this year. At the end of the season the mice ate our pumpkins too. 🤷🏻♀️ Our garden has a fence, but the critters are sneaky!
A lot of folks had that very same problem with the mice getting the sweet potatoes, I grew mine in some large pots that our apple tree's came in and had great success, so I ordered some 10 gallon grow bags, and wish I had gotten the 15-20 gallon ones but they will work for me. I think that's the trick to keep those pesky mice at bay, Hopefully.
Voles for sure. So sorry this happened to you. 💜
Rachel this is the first year I had an issue with hawks. As of right now we had 3 of our white chickens attacked and none of our other ones. Anyways to tell you put your chickens in your garden and the voles and the mice will start to disappear. When we first bought our property we had an infestation of them white grubs after letting our chickens in our garden A lot of them issues went away. We have tilled every year which might help in that matter also. I think your landscape fabric might be good for other vegetables maybe lettuce or cabbage
I think you should dump the landscape fabric and then consider getting a barn cat next spring. We have always had at least one cat but now that our only cat is 20 years old and not going outside, I've suddenly had rodent problems. Lots of them. We'll be getting a young cat next year. 💚
It was a season of experimentation and the outcome is that landscape fabric isn't a fit in your garden. I am happy that you still have enough sweet potatoes for yourself and Todd. Hope that 2025 finds you with a plentiful garden!! 😊
I grew mine in some medium sized grow bags this year in Oklahoma. I didn’t have drip irrigation, and we had a drought, and the deer came and ate off the tops in July maybe. We got some super small sweet potatoes but there were some that actually grew under the grow bag in the native soil. Our mice problem actually took out 6 out of 7 of my roselle hibiscus in the raised bed right next to the sweet potatoes. Maybe it was the landscape fabric. 🤷♀️ my sweet potatoes didn’t have mice damage at all.
I have all raised beds and farm ground around me in all four directions. We have some terrible mice years. Last year not so bad, this year kinda. I have advanced to raising my sweet potatoes and regular potatoes in cattle lick tubs. I have been getting fabulous results. The mice will get into where ever they want to go. I have problems with moles in my beds with tomato plants. Curing that problem this coming year.
Speaking of mice. I am storing 50# flour then rolled oats as oatmeal both in 2 Rubbermaid totes but in the garage to stay cold.
Do you think mice with eat thru the totes?
Some sort of rodent got into my sweet potatoes this year too, in raised beds! In a fenced in garden! I think it was rabbits. We still had a great harvest though!
Oh no! Sad results... thanks for sharing the losses for a real look at how it goes. 🌿
Sweet potato are my favourite vegetable also. I would cry a river😢 so sorry about the mice eating the crop.
We live in farm country, so if we don’t aggressively trap for mice and voles all season, there won’t be anything left for us, no matter how much we plant. Just gotta manage your pests in the garden the way you would in the house, yk? It’s awful; I hate it because I’m sure they could be feeding some friendly snakes in the cornfields, but it’s a necessary evil here.
So sorry your sweet potato harvest was a bit of a bust this year! ❤
What a frustrating harvest.. but, still some 😎
I pulled all my acorn, butternut, spaghetti squash and buttercup, put them in my 3 sided garden shed to dry a little and about a week or so later a critter ate 3 butternut and was working on the buttercup. I brought the rest indoors. Mice, rats, squirrels are brats.
Time to get a cat 🐈 ❤ my bengal Kitties re great mousers, and they catch all the voles in horse pasture next door, too! No voles in m garden ever!!! ❤😂🎉
So sad and frustrating! I was unfortunate to have that happen to me one year. No ground cover either. Just one year...so far.. Out of about 5/6 years planting in the same garden too.
Don't know why it happened. I haven't changed anything i was doing either.
If I were a field mouse or rat, I would live in the brasica tent/weeds and go back and forth to the sweet potato patch.
I do not plant my sweet potatoes under fabric, just in raised beds. This year was the worst year ever for mice/voles eating my tubers. They munched on over half my crop. So sad!
You need a couple of barn cats
Aw, that's a shame. I had a similar experience with potatoes this year...tried the Ruth Stout method and it apparently made a nice home for mice. Between the hollowed out potatoes and the ones that turned completely green from sunlight sneaking in, it wasn't a successful experiment. And I want to fire the feral cats who live on our property...they've grown old and lazy it seems, haha. Well, at least they leave the birds alone too.
Ours got eaten on too just like yours! We only ended up getting a handful of sweet potatoes and it was the first year they had been eaten on. Wondering if I should plant in a different place next year.
I grew two potatoes that look like rubber duckies, one even has a little sailor hat lol.
😂😂😂
Voles. They ate every carrot I planted 2 years ago, I had nothing but the green tops. One day they were upright, next day wilted.
I had the same issue this spring, this winter it's war, I purchased two dozen mouse traps.
@@mowerds33, I didn't have any luck with mouse traps.
@@sheliaheverin8822 I got some of the plastic ones and I got 3-4 voles over the summer, but there was too much food and ants were eating my bait. I'm putting the traps out during the winter when there's way fewer food options.
@@mowerds33Good idea!
@@mowerds33, great idea.
We had trouble with something eating our tomatoes. Hubby put a fence around but we think it was either ground hogs or chipmunks. Very disappointing...I feel for you.
Maybe the mice got the memo that you guys were cutting back on carbs and sugar. Darn those dirty rascals. My tomatoes were like that this year. One bite or peck from a bird in like 20 tomatoes ugh!
I haven’t had this problem, but I have heard it is from them being thirsty. The cure is apparently to put a water bowl out for the critters.
I'm sorry about your harvest getting eaten! It's so disheartening to lose a crop to pests that was clearly growing so well.
We used landscape fabric in our in-ground garden pathways this year to prevent weeds, and I have seen rats and voles both run out of my garden beds with full mouths and hide under the fabric. I had three garden beds planted with peanuts, and when I came to harvest them I found almost no nuts and just piles of shells tucked under the fabric. We have had more harvest from one bed in previous years without the fabric, than we had in three beds this year. I am convinced the landscape fabric is to blame.
Rachel, Doug and Stacy had a video on recently called "Dead tomatoes." Maybe you should look at that. That is just too much damage to handle. Sorry I would not be able to do that. Best wishes ⚘️🙏🇿🇦🇺🇲
Definitely Voles! Yikes!
I don't use fabric for root crops. This year, I raised my potatoes in raised beds. Never going back.
I can just see in my mind, hoards of little mice chomping away.." hey everybody! That Rachel lady has the best veggies!!"
Oh man I am so sorry. I've had this happen and it hurts. Mice and voles are horrible creatures but at least you got something to use.
If you've been eating food after cutting off the bitten portion and your still alive and healthy, I wouldn't worry about other folks concerns. Thanks for the non-time lapsed video. Harvesting should be real time.❤
Our squirrels tend to eat the sweet potatoes too. I’m sorry lost so many.
IDK if you have chipmunks where you are, but that was actually what was getting under our landscape fabric and wreaking havoc on our root vegetables. Particularly the sweet potatoes and beets. We did much better when we pulled up the landscape fabric for the root crops. That was when we were down in Tennessee.
We had cucumber beetles into all of my cukes, melons etc
I find a pitchfork works well w digging the sweet potatoes out
My theory on the moles and voles is they went away in our area about 10 yrs ago. Because it WAS dry over the summers. Came back 3 years ago. Because it was wet over the summers. We just had a dry late summer and fall. Maybe they’ll go away again??
Your potato does look like a person. It reminds me of the Lady Elaine Fairchild puppet from Mr. Rodger's neighborhood.
I was thinking Snoopy…. Lol
Sadly gophers, moles, and shrews will also chew like that. Sorry it happened though. I am in Indiana and that issue is why I have a greenhouse now with raised beds.
I had the same thing happen to my cantaloupe one year. They were completely hollowed out.
Country living! I had my entire garden destroyed overnight by a family of deer. I thought I had protected it well enough. Some times Mother Nature has other ideas.
Deer eat mine too just chops and leave the rest. I put chicken wire or hog wire around. Not pretty . I had Kale and cabbage the deer ate.
Voles are very easily mistaken for mice. If I don't get my crops out of the ground in early fall, they eat every last thing.
Last year I thought I was having the best cantaloupe year, I had like 20 beautiful cantaloupes on the vine. When I went to harvest mice had eat all the flesh out! I was heartbroken. This year I planted garlic around them, and it seemed to help.
The mouse problem was more likely due to the lack of rain you spoke of. They were seeking anything that held moisture.
Heartbreaking video but thank you for sharing. I am not a fan of black plastic in any use. I would use a deep organic mulch to keep weeds down.
Another thought was leaving them in the ground to harvest late. I have had rodents munch on white potatoes and blamed it on not harvesting soon enough.
Also, we keep outdoor cats who do a great job on rodents and bunnies. They don’t actually kill them but scent the area and try to pounce on them so the rodents seem to just move away.
So sad, this was a bad harvest for me this year I will try something different next spring. ❤❤❤
I prefer deep mulch. The sheep and rabbits are giving it away free. It also nourishes and protects the soil life. No rodents can use it to hide from the cats.
Bummer, but I would guess the chickens had a sweet treat!
If that whacky potato were a purple potato it would look exactly like Barney! Ha! Ha!
Oh no Rachel, so sorry. I feel so bad for you. We all seem to have at least one loss in the garden, it’s still sad when it happens. Hopefully the little critters appreciate the feed they had and leave your carrots alone. Keep smiling Rachel 💖
I've used landscape fabric now for over 4 years and have never had any problem with mice. And, most market gardeners use it so? I'm just a bit north of you here in Michigan, closer to Detroit but you do live in a pretty rural area so maybe the mice are more prevalent. From what I've seen of your videos, you haven't been too excited to use landscape fabric so I wonder why you did. I like it, it holds back the weeds and that saves me a lot of hassle. For each their own but I'm not so sure it's the LF that has caused your sweet potato problem. Maybe rescue some cats? :)
So sorry for your poor harvest 😢. I love your boots… what brand /style are they??