Danged &%$#@+(^$ Critters!

[worth1]

Yards aren't (ruined) by armadillos.
They're looking for grubs that do ruin yards.
Is a green grass yard that important over a critter that's been here for so long.
Just rake the soil back and enjoy life.

[Gardadore]

Always learn something new at TJ. Didn’t know groundhogs didn’t go that far south. But then we don’t have armadillos! Groundhogs are our nemesis. Very persistent critters!

[slugworth]

can't even predict the weather correctly

[GoDawgs]

Yards aren't (ruined) by armadillos.
They're looking for grubs that do ruin yards.
Is a green grass yard that important over a critter that's been here for so long.
Just rake the soil back and enjoy life.

There is no enjoying life with an active armadillo. It's not a green grass thing with me. It's a safety issue, an ankle turner thing. The last large armadillo that was here would dig over 20 holes a night. Every morning I'd take a hoe and TRY to rake that scattered soil back into the holes but you can never get it all back in. That necessitates fetching a bucket of soil and topping off every hole or risk tweaking an ankle on uneven ground. No. I don't put up with that. Mr. Mossberg fixed the problem and the vultures were happy to get a good meal.

And thankfully there are no chipmunks around here. Whew!

[PlainJane]

My garden in New England was a never ending adventure with chipmunks, rabbits, groundhogs, skunks, possums, turkeys, foxes, deer, squirrels and even the occasional coyote or fisher cat to fend off. Gardening in Florida in a much smaller space has been wildly more productive even with the heat stress on plants in the summer.
But New England is beautiful…

[worth1]

@GoDawgs
I won't begrudge anyone for getting rid of critters including armadillos in any method they like.
I guess mine are more well behaved.

[slugworth]

I didn't even think of birds and bird pecked tomatoes.
I put out decoys last year;those old red screw in xmas tree lights that nobody uses anymore.
They would peck those and hurt their peckers.
Somebody said it is cardinals pecking the red tomatoes as a territorial thing,but I never catch any in the act.
Any small red object should do the trick.

[Yak54]

Sometime between 5:30pm last evening and this morning, the dastardly squirrels ruined two green BIG SOTWs. These tomatoes were growing towards the middle of the plant, away from the outside edge of the cage so it wasn't deer poking their muzzles in there last night. Pickles is working on a design for a netting enclosure around the whole line of buckets. In the meantime I think it's time for some target "practice".

This has been my squirrel solution for many years.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... 7NJuRbFLAO

[Yak54]

Wood Chucks are another story.

Dan

[slugworth]

at least if they ate the whole thing and not taste test

[Tormahto]

Plenty of chipmunks, here. They will usually taste one tomato a year, and that's it. Then they go back to whatever they eat. It's not anything that I plant in the garden beds. The past week was what I would call interesting. On Wednesday, my nectarine tree was stripped completely clean of fruit. I suspected a bear, later confirmed by a neighbor down the road who said that one came through the area on Wednesday. Friday it was several turkeys that showed up. I had just prepped a bed, went inside to get the seeds, came outside about 10 minutes later to see the bed all pecked up. I watched the turkeys for about another ten minutes until they vanished into the brush.

[Yak54]

Hey Tormato---didn't know there were bears in your neck of the woods. We had one pass thru the neighborhood here about 2 wks. ago. Very rare for this area.

Dan

[slugworth]

my sister even had them in her backyard here.
scat is a trip/slip hazard.

[GoDawgs]

Over the past four weeks there has been more deer damage to the garden that I can remember going back to a five year hot and droughty period during '06-'12. When everything out there dries up the deer head to the only green things around, gardens and landscapes. Leaf drop makes it look like fall.



The deer stripped the trial plants of Dar cucumber that were nice and lush and flowering. I've leaned a piece of fencing up against the trellis to protect them and there are baby leaves trying to emerge.



They've mowed down the lower leaves of the Cherokee Trail Of Tears pole beans as well as two of the thee kale plants. The second kale plant got the haircut after this first one did.



Stickless Wonder is a bush type of long Asian-type bean that did well first time out last year so I'm growing it again. The deer love it. They ate a 4' section on each end of the bed so I had to put a netting tunnel over those, using the last two pieces of netting in the shed. Unfortunately the netting doesn't hang all the way to the ground so the deer nosed up under it so now half of the bed's gone. It will regrow if given the chance. Call it unplanned crop staggering.




They stripped the leaves on one side of the sweet potato vines on the trellis. To protect the other side I stood several rolls of rolled up trellis fencing at each end of the walkway on the other side of the bed so they can't get at the other side. That's worked so far



The watermelon vines are half gone. No protecting those. I'm out of on-hand materials and am not going to throw more money on stuff that's only needed once in a great while. They'll make it on their own or they won't.

All of the damage main damage has occurred over the last two weeks. Before it was just a little nibble here and there. Every morning it's something else. Fortunately we've finally had some rain this week, the first in 31 days. We had an inch Tues-Wed combined and 1.4" during a series of t-storms yesterday afternoon. I can only hope that vegetation in the area starts greening up in a hurry.

Meanwhile the squirrels took the last of Incredible corn.



Last evening I spied the very first taste of Silver Queen silk laying in that bed. I bought rat traps for the Incredible bed last week and set them with peanut butter but the fire ants eat any bait before the squirrels can get to it! Can't win for losing. A cage style trap was bought yesterday and will be deployed this morning before they can destroy that corn too.

All of the damage has occurred over the last two weeks. We discussed putting a fence around the garden but it's about 100' x 50' and there would have to be at least 5' more on each side to allow for the riding lawn mower to enter/exit and maneuver around towing the cart. That's a lot of money I'm not willing to spend so I guess I'll have to put up with something like this every ten years or so.

Meanwhile, yesterday I was playing with planting dates for the fall garden. Hope springs eternal, I guess. I'm just real tired of fighting critters and seeing a lot of hard work destroyed.

[brownrexx]

So sorry to see that. It's depressing. I have occasionally had bad deer damage but usually it's not too bad.

This year I had some of my potato vines nipped off and they also sampled the asparagus but now they seem to have moved on and I have not had any more damage.

Supposedly Irish Spring soap in mesh bags will deter deer with the strong smell. I put some out but I don't know if that is the reason that the deer quit eating my plants or if they just moved on to somewhere else.

[slugworth]

I am losing cuke plants to field mice.
They eat the leaves off and just leave the stems.
Good thing I planted 60 plants.

[karstopography]

A marsh rabbit ate every one of my Asian long bean sprouts. Those sprouts were in the only area of the garden not surrounded by nets. This same rabbit loves the peanut foliage and pulls any leaves and stems next to the net and scarfs those down. I don’t have the heart to hurt the rabbit. The marsh rabbit gives the dog a workout, though.

The squirrels are allowed sweet millions tomatoes, I’ve ceded that plant to them for the remainder of the season. But, any other incursions into any other areas of the garden are met with lethal force.

[worth1]

I tried free range beans once and the rabbits ate them.

[JRinPA]

I tried free range rabbits once but they ate my beans. It's a vicious circle.

My first corn dropped pollen heavily two days back. I too am dreading the squirrels.

[JRinPA]

Seems last year I read about using a rat sized walk the plank trap for squirrels. I think it called for a 55 gallon drum. That would be a kill trap. I have to think that would work pretty well.

I have caught squirrels in have a hart traps before, it is not pretty. They go nuts compared to rabbits and groundhogs. Possums are pretty laid back about them though. They just pretend to sleep.