Ahhhh, how glad I am you are back and posting! This was just great again!!! Can see you placing all the protection around the little plants - I guess I will copy some of your advice and knowledge next season here... the voles have just killed 3 of my cellery plants eating up the roots.... ;-) We have rabbitfence underground with the jerusalem artichokes already, but I might just do the same with much more, haha! Cheers to you from the Seven Mountains in Germany and may @blocktrades or @hendrikdegrote pass by for you very soon!!!!
It is really insane down here. Up north it's green everywhere so a few voles aren't much of a problem. I like to make deals with all the little people and I told the voles they could have only one of my cabbages. They seemed to honor this contract and only one of my cabbages had any appreciable damage. They ate it right down to the stem but left the other cabbages alone. Weird, eh?
The only other constant threat is from the deer. They have lots to eat, but they seem to prefer exotic food from my garden. Last year I did have a bear tear down my plastic deer fence to get to my plum tree. Then the deer got in and finished off my garden. Even after I fixed the fence, the deer had learned that they could rip through the plastic with their front hooves so the fence was useless after that. Being the scrounge that I am I had quite a bit of old wire fencing lying around. I hastily installed it and it worked to keep them out. It looks like crap but it was an emergency. (and I'm too lazy and cheap to go buy new wire fencing since this was only a temporary garden until I got my cabin built.)
Still working on these contracts here - does not quite work out as well as on your side of the ocean... Maybe the voles just realize how it works for the kids... they kinda sit there saying: but it tastes just soooooooo gooooo, mommy... grmf... time will work this one out I guess... Oh, and btw. I did sing as loud as I could for you today on the potatoe-peeling-philosophy, haha - let me know if you were able to hear more than a whisper ;-)