Tim B said:


I've tried tying the ears inside of school lunch bags and that is of some
limited help. I've thought of making a big cage out of chicken wire and PVC
pipe. Short of that, is there anything you've seen that has a proven
ability to protect the corn?

I plant my corn in 4' x 4' blocks. Before we built the strong wire fence and
topped it with 2 strands of electric (to stop the groundhogs), we protected
the corn from racoons (quite successfully) with temporary fencing.

The fence consisted of 8' 'panels.' These were made of 1x2 boards with 4' chicken
wire stapled to them, with the wire running past the end of the boards a foot or so.
Four of these 'panels' could be tied together with wire running out from the patch at
the bottom and flopping out from the top. Pounding in a short fence stake at each
corner of the patch helped with the installation. (Old shoelaces made great ties.)

Follow-up question: this year we should have strawberries. Do raccoons
like to pilfer these too?

Not as much as corn. When I grew strawberries, plastic bird netting draped
over a frame of plastic pipe was enought to protect them. Racoons can go
right through plastic netting if they really want to.

--
Pat in Plymouth MI

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)