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Post by richardw on Jul 17, 2016 14:16:10 GMT -5
After reading the problems all you fella's have with wildlife i can feel so thankful that no animals have any impact on my garden apart from 15years ago i had a mob of dairy cows come in through the front gate off the road. Its only blackbirds that cause a few problems but even then last summer there were hardly any and i didnt have to net the strawberries and tomatoes.
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Post by garand555 on Jul 17, 2016 16:28:55 GMT -5
I get cottontails that will much on any leafy greens. My dogs have been lazy when chasing them out, so I have to pick up the slack. I also get raccoons that will eat some of my corn, but they only get cobs that are close to the ground. Consequently, the cobs' average hight off of the ground goes up every year. I get the occasional hornworm on tomatoes and chile, but they're not too bad.
The thing that I get that are really bad are the squash bugs. The stinky little bastards bring up genocidal feelings whenever I see them. I hate those things so much. I've been known to drag my shop-vac into the garden to get rid of the things. I would put up with chupacabra damage if the chupacabras would kill the squash bugs.
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Post by steev on Jul 17, 2016 21:03:25 GMT -5
Harvesting spuds today, I found a 6' gopher tunnel straight down the center of the planting; the rabbit that's in the veggie-corral is eating all the leaves off my struggling bush-beans, as well as an occasional foray for carrot foliage; I need more effective predators.
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Post by ferdzy on Jul 17, 2016 21:05:32 GMT -5
My potato patch that was not protected and located further from the house had all the flowers chopped off as soon as they were about to open. It was deer. Those flowers must be tasty. Can someone comment on what veggies are most susceptible to damage? For me it's peas and favas. Plants are chopped off as if with a scythe, but not eaten. , could that be cut worm damage? Mostly happens when they are quite small? |
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Post by philagardener on Jul 18, 2016 5:27:50 GMT -5
Harvesting spuds today, I found a 6' gopher tunnel straight down the center of the planting; the rabbit that's in the veggie-corral is eating all the leaves off my struggling bush-beans, as well as an occasional foray for carrot foliage; I need more effective predators. Wow! A 6' gopher tunnel would be the sign of a big problem! |
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Post by reed on Jul 18, 2016 7:20:13 GMT -5
Thank God I'm not even sure what a gopher is. I used to have moles but hunting them was my dog's absolute favorite pastime. She made quite a mess but the moles have been gone for years. I lost track of how many coons I'v sent to meet their maker. One of my gardens is fortified with chicken wire with the bottom buried in the ground and that generally keeps rabbits out but not squirrels and chipmunks. Chipmunks are easy to catch in traps though.
Like I said before we got lots of hawks and owls but it doesn't seem to help that much. You can't bribe them with food cause there is so much of it but I'm looking into how to size and position houses for them, if they would just take up residence close to the gardens I bet it would help a lot. I used to have a pair of kestrels that lived in the rotted eve of the old abandoned house across the road and they were hell on mice and baby rabbits but they moved away.
Tall fences help with deer as does shooting them. I'm going to try chemical warfare against the squirrels. I have some hot sauce concentrate made from ghost and scorpion peppers, I'm gonna mix some up with a little Elmer's glue and paint the higher up ears of corn. I have an idea of powderizing those peppers and fixing little shakers pointing down so when they start to climb the stalk it sifts down and burns their little eyes out but I'm a little scared of trying to powderize that stuff. I think there is a non poisonous rodenticide that causes them to fart themselves to death but won't hurt anything that eats them afterward so I'm gonna look in to that.
I know some of this sounds cruel but that's just too bad. I'v been patient, I'v planted extra to share, I'v tried to be humane but now it's flat out war.
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Post by steev on Jul 18, 2016 10:22:45 GMT -5
Luckily, that gopher tunnel was 6' length, not diameter; now, a gopher big enough to dig a 6' wide tunnel would be a worthy adversary, rather than just a pisser.
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Post by philagardener on Jul 18, 2016 11:49:57 GMT -5
Whew!
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Post by jondear on Jul 18, 2016 13:33:44 GMT -5
i have some hot sauce concentrate made from ghost and scorpion peppers, I put ghost pepper sauce on my beets last year. The deer thought it was salad dressing.  |
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Post by diane on Jul 18, 2016 14:38:27 GMT -5
A daughter lives near a salmon stream and gets the occasional bear in her yard. No deer. When we sailed up the coast to Alaska there were no deer, but lots of grizzlies. Our city gets seasonal cougars, when the young males need to seek new territory, even into downtown, but they don't seem to deter the city deer.
Here, deer eat marigolds, squash plants when they are small, leeks, garlic sometimes, plus all the other vegetables that we all know they like.
Squirrels eat all the nuts (filberts, walnuts), and fruit that grows on, or up into, trees (kiwi, grapes) but don't need to come down and eat stuff lower to the ground, like blueberries - they leave those for the robins.
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Post by Walk on Jul 18, 2016 14:58:43 GMT -5
I'm going to try chemical warfare against the squirrels. I have some hot sauce concentrate made from ghost and scorpion peppers, I'm gonna mix some up with a little Elmer's glue and paint the higher up ears of corn. I have an idea of powderizing those peppers and fixing little shakers pointing down so when they start to climb the stalk it sifts down and burns their little eyes out but I'm a little scared of trying to powderize that stuff. I think there is a non poisonous rodenticide that causes them to fart themselves to death but won't hurt anything that eats them afterward so I'm gonna look in to that. I know some of this sounds cruel but that's just too bad. I'v been patient, I'v planted extra to share, I'v tried to be humane but now it's flat out war. We used to have a house that had some vertical, cedar trim boards on the south side attached greenhouse. For some reason squirrels decided that trim was the tastiest thing around and would start gnawing on it first thing in the morning and any chance they could get when I wasn't chasing them away with angry words and broom swinging. So I made up a hot pepper mix and saturated the wood with it. The hot pepper did nothing to deter the squirrels. At some point they moved on to other pursuits, but not until they had chewed the edges on all of the boards - it looked like a carpenter had taken a router and rounded them off. Maybe the squirrels quit when their work was done? |
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Post by steev on Jul 18, 2016 17:12:54 GMT -5
Not every critter is as sensitive to capsaisin as we are; Parrots tend to really like chilies, for instance.
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Post by farmermike on Jul 18, 2016 20:45:11 GMT -5
The crops that animals seem to bother least in my garden are, fava beans, herbs (including fennel bulb), spicy greens (like arugula, mustard, diplotaxis),...and of course horseradish.
Timing also seems to be important in avoiding predation of new seedlings; between May 15th and June 15th, I seem to be able to plant almost anything without the new plants being disturbed (I figure that is when there is the most wild forage available for critters). But if I plant seeds in April or July, I have to protect them vigorously. In May our overwintering sparrows head north, and in July as the hills dry out rodents head into my irrigated "oasis" garden. In the middle of a very dry winter, every seedling, weed or crop, will be devoured by desperate birds.
Placement in the garden seems to matter as well. Plants near the edge of a fenced garden get eaten by winter-foraging sparrows, while the ones in the back, near the solid wall of the chicken coop are fine. Wide open beds near pathways, where I and my dogs pass frequently, are safe, but those obscured by tall wildflowers get munched.
Right now I'm dealing with predation by roof rats, pocket gophers, California towhees, and voles (it is a boom year for voles). I have been very successful trapping the gophers with Macabee type traps, but it takes much persistence. I seem to have the best luck with rats when I use both live and snap traps -- though it is very unpleasant to drown the ones caught in live traps. I think the rats traps are catching voles too, but they usually get eaten before I see them. The towhees I get with a pellet gun when I can.
My empathy for pest species seems to be waning at the same rate I increase my garden space. I refuse to use poisons, because I don't want to kill predators that eat the dead pests. I have been thinking of building a few owl boxes.
I also think that reducing habitat (hiding places) for animal pests would help a lot. Clearing out woodpiles, brush piles, brambles/thickets, tall grass, run-down sheds and the like may make the biggest difference, but they are often the most labor-intensive option.
In my youth, as a native garden designer/landscaper, I used to tell everyone how important it was to have "structural habitat", such as rotting logs, brush piles, rock piles, etc. in their gardens to encourage biodiversity. But as I have shifted my focus to food crops, it is getting harder to justify that stance -- since rats seem to be the most frequent occupant. I recently inherited a hillside garden with terraces built out of urbanite (pieces of broken concrete) and the voles have created a thriving metropolis in the excavated spaces between the concrete rocks.
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Post by steev on Jul 19, 2016 2:01:11 GMT -5
I've not noticed this to be a boom year for voles; 3 and 4 years ago certainly were; I lost trees to them; even the fish-wrap Chronicle had an article about what a plague they were in NorCal. In more urban areas, I can see that clearing habitat is useful, but mostly because urban environments tend to a paucity of predators (our own damned fault!). Our domestic dogs and cats tend to be useless for pest control, never having been taught properly by their parents and too well-fed to be interested in hunting for chow.
I also look to building housing for bats, owls, and roosts for raptors; I'm not on site 24/7, so I need allies that are; I value my windrows of slash and weeds as cover for snakes, so helpful in dealing with rodents. I'm not sanguine about traps outside, as there are critters I don't want to catch that can get caught; I have no problem with traps in the pump-house, which are very productive of dead rodents.
Urban gardening has different challenges than rural gardening; it's all a learning opportunity, but much of the learning is site-specific. Raccoons, for example, are no problem on the farm (plenty of predators), but they're a PITA in town (no adequate predators).
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jocundi
gopher
Tinkering with fruits and veggies in Eastern Boreal Forest on Canadian Shield.
Posts: 28 
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Post by jocundi on Jul 19, 2016 11:32:55 GMT -5
My potato patch that was not protected and located further from the house had all the flowers chopped off as soon as they were about to open. It was deer. Those flowers must be tasty. Can someone comment on what veggies are most susceptible to damage? For me it's peas and favas. Plants are chopped off as if with a scythe, but not eaten. , could that be cut worm damage? Mostly happens when they are quite small? Yeah... hers of deer caught on motion camera coming to sniff at those flowers and then returning to eat them at just the right moment lol |
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