"Suuzzee" wrote:

Hello ... I've been a lurker for awhile now and always enjoy reading about
growing things.

Our problem is as follows: We live near a creek and recently had a spring
dug out to make a small pond. To keep the moss out of the shallows, we
floated tiny barley bales on the surface. That was working well until
something discovered the bales and chewed through the tie lines and ate
them. Raccoons? Turtles? We don't know what ate them (no footprints
thanks to heavy rains here in Virginia), nor do we have a clue how to keep
the critters from doing it again. Anybody have any experience with this or
any ideas?

I have a 15'x45' pond and use "Bale in a Bag" barley straw bales from:

http://www.baleinabag.net/pondtreat.asp

I actually bought them at my local Ace Hardware. You open the bales and
place the straw in bags about the size of a 25# bag of potatoes. They
are plastic mesh bags. Something ate a hole in the top of my bag, it
think it was the snails. However the remainder of the bag is still
floating since May.

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Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman