On Thursday, July 5, 2012 3:02:01 PM UTC-4, 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.

--
Pat in Plymouth MI

"Yes, swooping is bad."

email valid but not regularly monitored

My cucumbers grow in containers up netting put around patio to keep out the rats with hooves. I should be getting in a good crop shortly.

I went to containers on deck and below on patio years ago because of encroaching shade and those damn deer. For other critters, I have a Hav-a-hart trap and have caught and removed numerous squirrels, groundhogs and raccoons.. If you get a trap, get the largest one as big raccoons sometimes don't fit in the one designed for groundhogs. Also a good idea to close it at night unless you don't mind catching skunks too.