Several years ago the caravan park adjacent to our allotment site underwent a substantial revamp, with all the old statics demolished to make way for new, more permanent accommodations. The rat army living under the old vans descended on the plots like a biblical plague, eating everything in sight.
Over time, numbers of owls have increased, cats have taken up residence and a pair of sparrowhawks now lives and breeds in the nearby wood, all of which is barely making a dent in the rodent population. The local authorities have washed their hands of it, for whatever reasons, so it's down to individual plot holders to deal with it in whatever way they can.
My conscience won't allow me to use poisons and subject ratty to a lingering death and at the same time endanger any predators that may consume poisoned animals. I won't have traps on a garden that small children visit from time to time, so what to do?
Damage was spectacular. Whole crops of mature peas and broad beans disappeared overnight; sweetcorn cobs were emptied; entire potato crops were tunnelled out (Rooster's their favourite - can't fault them there!) and compost bins emptied of anything edible. Their piece de resistance was the consumption of getting on for two tons of seaweed, laboriously collected and applied after the autumn gales' annual delivery of Mother Earth's bounty. Granted, I should have been checking the plot more often, but it was winter, dammit!
The solutions were embarrassingly simple. Flagstones under some of the dalek composters and fine gauge wire netting under the others stopped the disappearing compost trick at once. Protecting crops was just as easy, too, in the end.
As mentioned, there's a wood next door to the allotment site, on the northerly side. It's handy for calming the winter winds but also provides a breeding ground for Percy pigeon, meaning that crops must be netted or lost. It became obvious that any crops that were mulched with seaweed and netted retained their mulch, despite ratty's obvious love of the stuff. The scaffolder's mesh used as pigeon protection was sufficient to deter the rats, apparently. One would think that their gnashers would make short work of it, but there are no obvious efforts to chew through it; as long as it's pinned securely to the soil they keep out. Even my slow dinosaur brain saw the potential immediately.
So, the garden in full swing now appears to be a space for growing plastic mesh tents. Roland is excluded; crops are saved and most of the swearing has stopped...honest! The only drawback is a slight increase in aphid infestations because the mesh restricts access for the usual predators, but that's a small price to pay. Interestingly, netted legume crops seem to do just as well as before despite the absence of insect pollination.
