# what the heck is eating my garden?????



## strawhouse (Aug 7, 2010)

Oh I'm so upset! Something is eating my garden, and I have no idea what it is. It started with some of my tomatos and then moved on to the cucumbers about 2 weeks ago. I've been so busy I haven't gotten around to slug traps, etc, so I just thought it was some annoying bug. 
Whatever it is, it left about 3-6" of stem in the ground, and the entire rest of the plant is gone.
I went out this morning, for the first time in 2 days, and I am sooooo mad!!!
It ate all the growth on my huge dill, leaving big 'ol foot long stems. It ate the tops of all my mint, and I had alot of mint. My gorgeous huge chamomille plants are nothing but spindly windy stalks with a few leaves poking off. I also noticed my orangeglo watermelon seedlings have completely dissappeared, and I was so excited to try them! 
I've never had this problem before....... but we gave our goats away a few weeks ago, and the neighbours have moved which means no dog across the road, and the wildlife is really moving back in to our woods now. 
Could it maybe be a rabbit? I always imagined them eating more than this though. But it also seems like odd things for squirrels or chipmuncks to be eating. It can't be an insect, right? Because the entire tops are missing? It did leave some tomato tops on the ground.... which have thankfully rerooted themselves......oh I hope someone has some ideas for what to do!!!


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

I bet if you spend more time watching, you'll see a colony of chipmunks scurring about and munching on your veggies. They get pretty brazen, and the only way of control is hardware cloth, or a .22 with shotshells(sometimes called rat shot). Once they get used to you, you can get close enough--maybe twenty to thirty feet, for the shot to be effective. Another possible control--I haven't tried this--is to make 'em "walk the plank". Set out a five gallon bucket half filled with water. Lay a board runway up to the bucket and seed it with sunflower seeds. Put a few in the water, too, they float. The chipmunk goes up the plank, jumps into the bucket to get the remaining sunflower seeds, and.............................

The shot shells probably won't work in a semiautomatic type of rifle--too weak to eject the casings.....
And check your local game laws and regs.....

Hope this helps,
geo


----------



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

Geo in Mi always has good information and I would certainly encourage you to consider what he/she said. (Sure glad we don't have chipmunks in our area.)

I am wondering, however, if you've seen any type of tracks. Since you've owned goats in times past, you would recognize those tracks. (I know deer will demolish a garden in the manner you described as they did our last year.)


----------



## strawhouse (Aug 7, 2010)

Oh Geo, I knew I was going to get a kill em off answer. Wish it didn't have to be that way.... but I think your'e right. Although I live in the middle of the forest, 80,000 acres behind me, so I think I might just have more and more move in.

motdaugrnds, I forgot to mention, I have a super fenced in garden, well, against larger animals anyways. We fenced it in last year to keep the goats out, so I know it's not that sweet little deer I saw..... and no tracks either. 

What about spraying plants with a hot pepper garlic tea mix? I remember someone telling me once that little rodents don't like the hot peppers??


----------



## happygardener (May 26, 2011)

Sounds like you need a dog. My blue heeler runs straight to the garden at night and will carry on something awful. He runs the squirrels away from my fruit tree's. He knows he is guarding and keeping all intruders away.


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

I had some used rabbit fencing that I put around the tomato plants(after replanting them a couple of times....) The mesh at the bottom is about 2" by 4" for about the first ten wires, then wider spaced wires above that. That seemed to discourage them, but now I will have to remove it since I will need the spacing on the original cages underneath to pick them later on--and need to remove the rabbit fencing without damaging the tomato growth. The sweet peppers, I made cylinders out of quarter inch wire mesh, loosely tied together so I can flatten them out and store them for next year, if I need them. I already had some eight foot frames with rabbit fencing on them, mostly for ground hogs, for the brassicas, so I made a fenced plot for them. Like you, this is the first year I've had problems with chipmunks, so I feel your pain at the loss of your hard work. I haven't seen my feral cats around this Spring, so the chipmunks must have gotten out of control. My garden is surrounded by woods, too, but not that much acreage--so they seem to have found a new food source to feed the little ones.

Don't know if hot sauce would work, or simply give them a New Orleans BBQ treat. 

Now I have this huge rabbit this morning.....

geo


----------



## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

I would certainly be concerned if I had chipmunks so big that they leave stalks a foot tall! Besides, they are primarily seed and fruit eaters. Look around for a groundhog hole. Fences don't stop them.

Martin


----------



## Ray (Dec 5, 2002)

Boy those young ground hogs are some mighty fine eating themselves tho. I believe I'd find out what it is for sure and eliminate the pest while enhancing the table! 
I think of my youngest DIL on things like this, she loves venison, quail, but wouldn't eat rabbit unless she was starving. Just a mental thing.


----------



## Guest (Jun 21, 2011)

Groundhog song.
Listen to the young ones squeal and cry
When they smell the old ones stew and fry.


----------



## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Do you have groundhogs there? That would be my first guess because that is exactly how they work. Groundhogs are excellent diggers and they usually dig under fences in an area that is pretty well hidden.


----------



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

Know nothing about ground hogs; but I sure like the idea of those wire walls that can be taken up and used again at another date.

So far this year we have not had ground hogs, moles or voles enter the garden. I was told they don't like Castor Oil, so I poured some around the parameters.

Next year I am planning on a few "raised beds" and will be placing rubber-coated wire in the ground at least 6 inches all around each to deter any digging/tunneling.


----------



## strawhouse (Aug 7, 2010)

GROUNDHOG! I'm sitting here eating dinner and there he is eating the top off my tomato plants! That cute, furry, little (insert proferred profanity here)
It was eating one of my few remaining plants I so lovingly grew frow Martin's seeds too! gggrrr.
Anyone had any success with methods that DON'T invole eating it?? 
It's got a fancy nice new hole right in my garden too. ugh.


----------



## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Trap it, shoot it, bury it. I don't eat them either but they can't be allowed to eat my whole garden.


----------



## frankva (May 21, 2009)

Plug it. Crows gotta eat, too.


----------



## strawhouse (Aug 7, 2010)

So I've been sending my hubby out to pee on the hole for 2 days...... so far so good! We also picked up a live trap today. It'll be a sad small harvest this year.


----------



## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

Problem with having a groundhog relocate is that it will just sneak in from a different direction after digging a new den. Had one at the farm that was annoyed enough that it moved. Didn't know where to until I planted 4 pairs of tomato plants around the perimeter of a large burning pile. Plants got off to a nice start and suddenly there were only 1 full plant plus a stub with one small leader. We know where the groundhog is now. Just need to get a burning permit.

Martin


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

Well, I guessed wrong, huh. But woodchuck would be a second choice, except I've never had one hungry enough to prefer tomato plants. That is a surprise to me. In doing some more research, I came across this which shows tracks made by woodchuck. Cultivating some soft spots where they could make tracks would have helped you with identification. But, of course, you have already seen the thief in action........

My method of woodchuck control is early watchfulness and a rifle. Eradication of the first of the season ones will prevent them until late June or early July here, since they will range only a couple of hundred feet from their burrows. But in the midsummer, new ones will range out from their nests elsewhere and stake out new territory(mine, since it is vacant). 

Since you may be unwilling to use the rifle method, it looks like you will have to invest in fencing and creative barriers.....
http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/freepubs/pdfs/uh092.pdf

Me, I've got to get a new battery for my red dot sight......

Good luck

geo


----------



## strawhouse (Aug 7, 2010)

OK Guys! My groundhog update!
How to get rid of a groundhog, (so far....) without eating it for dinner:
Spray some fox urine around it's hole. (It was easy to find, since it made itself a burrough right inside my fenced in garden.)
Next, grab a garden hose, stuff it down the hole, and wait. Not long.
Our garden eatin' groundhog came to the top of the hole, just at the top of the water, but wouldn't come out. So my husband got down and sprayed him in the nose! (You should have seen the delight on my hubby's face!) Out came that groundhog, shot right across the garden, ran into the fence, then out under the gate to a lumber pile. 
We banged on the lumber pile, it ran to ANOTHER burrough in the bush, we didn't know about. Sprayed that one with fox pee too!
Then stuffed the holes with grass so we could see if it came back. (the interweb told us that trick)
It's been 5 days, so far, so good! And according to the interweb, if a groundhog doesn't return in 3 days, it's moved out.
My garden is slooooooowly growing back...... 

Thanks for all your help!!!


----------



## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

The hole in the garden was what's often referred to as a "bolt hole". It's dug just for temporary escape if caught between a good food source and its regular burrow. Had one do that the first year in our community gardens. Laid a section of 1x1 expanded metal over the hole, turned the water on, and stood over it with a .22 pistol. Never bothered pulling it out but simply filled the hole up with the critter still in it! 

Martin


----------

