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Although I promised the rest of my vole advice would run last week, an unscheduled celery article made its appearance instead. So, this is a follow up to the column that ran two weeks ago, with vole-killing methods that have been suggested to me by readers or were shared among the members of the Master Gardener e-list.

In 2006, Cyndie Warbelow-Tack said that her staff members at Plant Kingdom nursery were trying a new product called VoleBloc. “It is an expanded natural slate that is very coarse particles. It can be used as mulch or, more ideally, spaced in around the planting area to present a physical barrier … apparently voles are one of a few rodents that avoid tunneling through abrasive material.”

I was eager to hear how well VoleBloc did at her nursery, so I e-mailed her a few weeks ago to learn the results. Alas, it did not turn out to be the magic cure I had hoped. According to Cyndie, “To be effective you must line the planting hole with a couple of inches, as well as the top, and since that seems pretty labor intensive, we really only did it with a few lilies … and I am not sure whether it really worked. I do not think we have really given it a fair test. I am personally very much against any poisons for several reasons. I do know people who have set out lots of snap traps but again, I do not feel particularly good about that. I think the best solution would be a cat or two to patrol the garden … voles are probably a lot better food for cats than most of the commercial cat foods … Our hostas and lilies especially take a major vole hit each winter … no good answers from me on this one.”

Using containers of water seems to be popular. One Master Gardener e-list participant wrote that she has had some success with a No. 10 can “sunk into the ground, filled about 1/3 with water. Place cans around, maybe at ends of rows and right in the center.” Other folks who wrote to me about using jars of water said that the voles fall into the jars and drown — although it is unclear if they quench their thirst before or after indulging in a meal of your bulbs and young plants.

One reader sent in the following advice, some of which he found in the AARP magazine: “I live beside a slough so murdering the little guys won’t prevent their relatives from taking their places, and I can’t cope with getting rid of them that way anyhow. I just don’t want them damaging my foundation or enticing my dog to crawl under my deck to get to them; I don’t garden enough to worry about their effect on my plants … I have enough distance from the slough so I wasn’t directly polluting it when I dumped a couple buckets of used kitty litter over my fence, the direction from which my dog and I see them entering our yard. The smell was initially horrendous, but has dissipated quite a bit.”

The same reader has also tried “using a dropper to deposit drops of peppermint oil under my deck along the base of my foundation, where they lived over the winter, and on our side of the fence. The AARP article suggested putting cotton balls soaked with peppermint oil in household entry locations; I’m hoping it will work as well outdoors. I looked online for sources of peppermint oil (also mentioned by a local pest control company), but found that Sunshine Health Foods had a 16-ounce bottle for $48.99, a bit more costly but immediately available with no shipping charge added … I had previously poured quite a lot of vinegar along the base of my foundation, but the discouragement effect did not appear to be lasting. I can’t report the long-term effect of the more recent methods, but, judging by my dog’s lack of interest in crawling under the deck, something’s helping.”

Then there was the suggestion that generated the best facial expression from my husband Ted, as well as an instantaneous refusal to have any part in replicating this method. I quote directly from the e-mail I received from one woman: “Several years ago I discovered that voles are repelled by male urine. Since then I have been setting up empty tuna tins along the perimeter of my garden and having my husband regularly urinate in them. As a result, my vole problem has completely disappeared.”

All sorts of questions come to mind, such as: How did she discover that voles don’t care for male urine---did she try female urine first? How did she ever convince her husband to start this — let alone continue it all summer long for the past several years? Does he slink out to the garden at night when the neighbors are presumed to be asleep, so they won’t notice and call the police on him? And why tuna cans instead of, say, empty orange juice or chili con carne cans? And since I once read (and again Ted would not cooperate in an experiment to find out) that peeing around the perimeter of the garden deters moose from feeding a garden protected in such a manner, has she eliminated her moose problem as well?

Several folks wrote that they coat seeds or grain with poison and then put handfuls in boxes that have openings so tiny that only voles and mice can get into them. I am not listing this method for readers to try, but to discourage those who are using this technique. Cats, dogs and children will not be deterred by small holes — they will simply rip open a larger hole and could eat the contents and get very sick or worse.

Once upon a time, this vole eradication method was disseminated by such respected gardening authorities as Sunset Magazine, and can still be found in several of their older gardening books. However, even they no longer support such a dangerous system. So, to those who wrote me that this is their preferred routine when confronted by voles — stop it, please, before we see you on the police blotter page or staring blankly at a news camera while you are being arraigned for poisoning a neighbor’s child.

So that’s it. If you have a vole eradication method (sounds so much better than killing method, doesn’t it?) that I didn’t mention this week or last, please e-mail it to me so I can pass it on to other readers.