Rats and mice need traps. There is an assortment of safe traps to use on these disease carrying rodents and you can also choose to use rat and mouse poison if you follow instructions carefully to make sure you do not endanger pets or other people. If you have a lot of rodents (it sounds like you do!) it may be best to call a professional terminator that will return several times with baits and traps to collect the next generation of rodents being born now. I do not know of any easy fix or repellent to keep rats and mice from your food - but I do know it is important to get a rat problem under control as there are important health concerns about having them in large numbers around food crops. Keep growing, (but not rodents) Marianne Binetti