Big, hungry pests

My third problem. Something is eating my plants. I planted lettuce, carrots, zucchini, broccoli, and potatoes. Something comes in the night (or at least when I'm not here) and munches the sprouts right down to the ground. Then it digs in the dirt for my squash seeds. Of an entire packet of zucchini, one sprout finally succeeded in popping up, and it was mowed down the next morning.

It's also killing my strawberry plants that I have out on the table on my patio. Scissored one down right at the soil line, then came back the next night, dumped the pot over the edge of the patio, flung dirt everywhere, and made off with the strawberry root. I actually tried (on advice), putting little clumps of my cats' fur and putting down little offerings from my cats' litter boxes with the idea that whatever it was would be afraid of cats. Not so. The plastic bag the litter was in -- it moved it out of the way!

I want, as much as possible, to use earth-friendly and organic solutions. I'm going to put these vegetables in my mouth eventually, after all.

But I've worked every single weekend, holiday, and evening on my garden, and I have nothing to show for it except for some dead and dying plants and a very discouraged spirit.

Maybe I just can't get anything to grow.

This message was edited Jun 24, 2006 3:41 AM

I debated on whether to tell this story again - since I recounted it on another thread recently - but I think it is appropriate. When I first moved into my home, it was in May or so, and I brought with me my tomato plants that I had been growing from seed first inside and then on the terrace of our apartment. I had over 20 varieties and all were healthy and would soon be ready to plant. The garden area of our new home was covered almost entirely with English Ivy, so I spent a month digging that out by hand and pick axe and dug up the Georgia red clay the same way and removed hundreds of fist-sized and larger rocks. I finally planted as many of my tomatoes as I could, and they were doing great until one afternoon when Hubby and I went shopping for things for our new home. Within the three hours we were gone, deer came and ate all but 3 or 4 plants to the ground. They even ate the ones still in pots and waiting for me to make more room in the garden for them.

Thank goodness the deer never came back, but I learned a valuable lesson: plant more than one type of thing whenever possible. I'd learn many more lessons over the next 3-4 years: such as large tomato varieties are generally more trouble than they are worth in my area of Georgia even though they grew great in Indiana. Small and medium-sized tomatoes are much more productive and much less trouble here. Another lesson - I plant two kinds of peppers - bell and banana - because some years the bell do horrible, but the banana can still be very productive. And a big lesson - plant the squash as early as possible, even if there is danger of frost, because the squash vine borrers WILL get them, so I get what I can before they do. Finally, a great tomato year doesn't neceassrily mean a great pepper year and vica versa.

My point is that unfortunately gardening usually takes practice and a bunch of trial and error. Even though I had gardened before, I was really almost starting all over again, because Georgia was entirely different from Massachusetts where I gardened as a girl and Indiana where I used a community garden.

You will have to learn the best times to plant things and what varieties grow best in your area. Depending on what pests you have, you might have to plant some things earlier than is usually optimal to get what you can before the pests show up. For example, if it is already hot there this time of year, you may have to plant your broccoli earlier next year (and hope there won't be any early bolting) to outwit your flea beetles as much as possible. Some years this may work, others it may not. I did this with my eggplants this year, and they were large enough this year to withstand the flea beetles when they showed up, so I didn't have to spray.

Some things you may not be able to grow at all - due to the weather, the soil, your local pests, or just because you're bad at that particular thing (for me it's carrots, big tomatoes, brussels sprouts, and onions - I don't even bother). Some things can be fertilized too much - such as squash, others too little.

I learned that for my area, I can plant leaf lettuce in November and it will live through the winter (through snow and below freezing temperatures even with little to no cover - I let fallen leaves do it) and give me early lettuce which has a much longer use life than the lettuce I plant in February (which can get zapped by heat later). Other plants also take the cold - Swiss chard for example, which miraculously also takes the heat. It remains mostly dormant through the winter, but gets a head start ahead of the bugs when it comes to life in spring.

Though you likely can't plant in winter, you may be able to plant some things earlier than you think - try and see. Seed is cheap, and the learning experience will be worth it - and these veggies may be able to outwit your local pests. If they don't make it - mow 'em down and plant a late season crop in their place.

I'm not sure if that helped or not - and it certainly didn't help with your problem here... I think maybe you have voles or something which is not something I know about. Maybe you could try putting out seeds or something the hungry critter would like better than your veggies?

Maybe chicken wire fences will be in order until your seeds get to the height where they can fend for themselves.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Do squirrels dig for seeds or eat plants? I put a beautiful redwood bird feeder out on my patio, and after several days the birds had finally found it and were coming around. The next day, the feeder was askew, and almost all of the seed was on my patio floor, with the sunflower seeds all broken open and eaten.

Squirrels?

I used to like animals, really I did. ;-)

Squirrels do definitely get into birdfeeders, you can actually buy special ones that are supposedly squirrel-proof. In my experience, they don't eat plants, but they do occasionally destroy them in the process of burying nuts in pots or in the garden.