Be a Critter Detective!
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A few years ago, I installed solar lights around my vegetable garden. The lights are the type that are on a stake you just stick into the ground. I installed them because I liked the way they look. To my surprise, the lights turned out to be a deer deterrent. I haven’t had a single deer in my garden since I installed the solar lights. We live in a rural area with LOTS of deer. I think the light keeps rabbits out of the garden who visit after dark. (My dog is on rabbit patrol during the day. Lol)
My problem is with rats. They'll eat all the green stuff on my veg overnight.
I have been using Bobbex R for years to great effect. This year, all the rabbits and chipmunks seem to have become acclimated to it. They're still in the garden. Should I just keep spraying and hope they finally are disgusted with how everything smells to them?
Okay.. for the deer, my Aunt who is 90 and has been farming since she was a child uses Irish Spring bar soap. She crochets these little nets and hangs them all around her strawberry plants and they leave them alone.. you could probably use any kind of little netting as long as the scent can be smelled by the deer. Now I have a question.. how do you protect against Groundhogs? Most of the farmers around here just shoot them.. which I do not want to do.
This page has tips on how to control groundhogs: http://www.almanac.com/pest/woodchucks-or-groundhogs
Hope this helps!
To my surprise I found a TURTLE eating my tomatoes, he even came back another day and I SHOT him with my Canon Camera.
Some kind of critter is biting off the stems of my flowers at the base. Not eating anything, just letting everything lay there. The bites are at an angle. What is it??? It's destroying all my expensive flowers! Petunias and superbells. I've had marigolds in the same pot, and they still destroy the other flowers.
Maybe it’s cutworms. I usually worry about cutworms when planting tomatoes. Who knows, maybe the horrid creatures have developed a taste for petunias and supercells.
Perhaps it is a rabbit? They sometimes chew off stems at an angle. You might try scattering a thick band of flour on the soil surface around your plants on a dry day/evening; the next day, see if any pawprints show up. The tracks might help you to ID the animals (which might also include a squirrel, groundhog, etc.). It probably isn't a cutworm, since these usually attack earlier in the season.
What works for me is to have a feeding station a little away from my garden. I have a short open bin there into which I toss surplus fruit and vegetables or those damaged by weather, disease or insects. Next to that I have a large tin bowl half buried in the ground which I fill with water. I protect my garden with a wire fence and motion lights. Animals go to the feeding station for the easy pickings and leave my garden alone. I also put out feed there before my garden starts producing. I think only hungry animals bother to raid protected gardens. So give them something to eat and drink and they'll leave your gardens, trees, shrubs and hoses alone. I dump whatever is in the bin about once a week, or whenever I have extra produce to add to it, into my compost bin which is then added back to my garden in the late fall. I get to watch lots of critters while I'm enjoying a meal of fresh garden produce on my deck.