NOTE: this is a repost from July 7. The original mysteriously disappeared from my blog.

Yesterday was a pretty good day in the garden in spite of record heat – 85 degrees in the shade at 9:30 am and 98 degrees in the same shade at noon.  Copious amounts of water have kept vegetables producing.

• Harvested: a quart of red raspberries, about the same amount of snow peas, a couple of heads of lettuce, and some dill and cilantro. I can't remember snow peas producing this late in the season but who's complaining.
• Fruiting and/or flowering: sweet and hot peppers, multiple bush beans, multiple tomatoes, eggplant, ever-bearing strawberries, raspberries, and summer squash.
• Growing and looking healthy: later planted pole beans, pumpkins, basil, zucchini, cucumbers, kale, dill, more basil, rosemary, sage, marjoram, more lettuce.

On this morning's early walk through the perennials beds inter-planted with eggplant, sweet peppers, bush beans, tomatoes, basil, and lettuce I found once healthy and heavily producing Sequoia bush beans – purple flowers and beans – looking like this.  The droopy and dehydrated leaves enticed further investigation. My nemesis – voles – had a nice meal of bean roots sometime last night while I dreamed of fresh picked beans for a summer meal.

I just don't think these vines will be producing anything. Nor will the two sweet frying pepper plants with no more roots or the three small eggplants pulled into freshly tunneled holes. The also grabbed a couple of tiny basil transplants and a coleus.

The loss of the beans – though frustrating – is not as bad as the loss of my peppers.  I can replant beans and still get a good crop. Plus I have multiple other plantings of beans in other areas. The peppers are another story. As soon as I complete this post I'm heading out into still hot, hot, hot weather (78 degrees at 7:30 am and very humid) to dig up the remaining pepper plants, put them in pots, water well, and sink them back in the ground in the same spot. I've nursed these pepper plants from seed and don't plan to let the %#*&@!^%&#@$%^&(^$#@!(*&^(%$!!!!!!!!!!!!!! voles get every last one.

I'm at a loss as to what to do to deter these voracious varmints. Any ideas - outside of get a cat or use poison bait  - are welcome.

This experience points out the wisdom of planting vegetables in multiple areas. I planted peppers, tomatoes, beans, and peas in three different beds and have planted most other edibles in multiple locations including pots (tomatoes, beans, summer squash, eggplant, basil).

It may not be pretty but it's the only way I know of to hedge my harvests against multiple attackers.