On Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:02:01 -0400, Pat Kiewicz
wrote:
Oh, I hate groundhogs.
What with the drought and all this year, they have been desperate.
The young ones that have been driven out are the smallest I have
ever seen, small enough to go *through* the chain link webbing on
the neighbor’s side of the vegetable garden, bypassing the shock wire
at the top. A setup that had worked for a dozen years or more has
been breached!
Have been sweating buckets and expending cash like crazy. First to
protect the raspberries from birds, which I’d never needed to do
before, because normally they are spending all their time eating
mulberries. But there were no mulberries in the neighborhood this
year, because the freeze that came after the March heat wave wiped
them out.
Now the pint-sized groundhogs have mowed their way though ¾ of
my edamame. Worse, a burrow was started inside the garden. I dug
that sucker out until it dead-ended. I guess it was started yesterday
evening, since the rain early this morning had wet down the newly
dug out earth.
I’m going to reinforce the chain link on the neighbor’s side from the
inside of the veggie garden and have set up a trap. Apples didn’t
seem to work on this one so I’ve added watermelon. I need
something it wants more than the soybean leaves…or hope that it will
give up and move on if only I build a better fence.
Arghh. I've got enough troubles (health). Damn. Damn. Damn.
I've got to find out what is eating the tomatoes and cantaloupes. I
think I am going to put the cantaloupes and pumpkins in stockings and
see if it slows the critters down. Hope whatever it is isn't tall
enough to reach very high in the tomato cages.
DH finally was able to run the trimmer in the garden and I can now get
to most everything now. Not that all of the weeds are gone, but at
least I can see them. Weather is supposed to be cooler starting
tomorrow. Guess I will get out and see what I can do.
At least I am feeling better this summer than last. Now if it would
just stay cool enough to get some yard & garden work done.
--
USA
North Carolina Foothills
USDA Zone 7a
To find your extension office
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/index.html