OK this toad has set up shop under my cuke trellis. I thought he would leave but its been weeks now and he won't go. I know he's alive because he moves when I water him. He may be stuck there because there is no tunnel for him to crawl in our out. My son is not scared to touch frogs so he will dig him out if we have to. I don't care if he wants to stay but what if he is eating my plants or worms when i'm not looking?
here is a google earth view:
That's a nice looking garden ratfood but how do your tomatoes get any sun? If I were a frog I would live there too. He is just waiting for the fruit to ripen.
Jeanette
Oh he's trying to get to my veggies you say???!!! He better don't!
Theres too much sun on this garden (garden #2) , i'll have to cover this one soon. I have garden #1 covered (cant see it here) and those tomatos in that one are doing a bit better (but they are a month older too). Theres no toads in garden #1 only squirrels and a peacock.
Toads eat bugs, not plants. We have a big one that's lived around our patio for years, and on summer nights he stays under our living room window catching bugs that are drawn to the light inside. He seems to eat moths mostly, but he won't turn a cricket down.
I'd leave that one in your garden alone - he's on your side.
Guess it's the squirrels and peacocks you have to keep an eye on. I know for a fact that the sqs love tomatoes and I'll bet the peacock wouldn't turn them down either.
OK thanks Ozark, I guess I will need to keep buying worms for him but I can handle that.
Jnetter, I put the peacock there to scare the squirrels out. They kept digging down to hide acorns!
Yup, they do that. But what do the peacocks do besides scare the squirrels? Jeanette
They cry "Help, help!" and make very nice feathers.
Ozarks right, toads arn't pretty, but they are some bug eating rascals. Don't worry toads can dig themselves out. I'm happy one tookup shop in my tatter bed.
That looks like a horned toad, or horney toad if you're from south Texas!
She's just there to keep squirrels out. Other than that she's a pretty decent gal.
OK I guess all I need at this point is to come up with a name for ?the texas horney toad... Anyone got something better than "Maria"?
Pickel!
I have enough toads in my flowerbeds that I'm up to Henry the VIII, LOL. I have a little "nursery area" that I keep potted plants in until I can get them planted and the frogs love to burrow down into the potting soil. They stay out at the edge so they don't hurt my plants. As Ozark says, they eat lots of insects so I'm glad to have them as permanent residents in my garden. I have an Eastern ribbon snake that takes care of all that in my veggie garden :-}
RATFOOD - I can't decide which is cuter, the peacock or the squirrelcrow - lol. Is the peacock working? Hopefully it's a little scarier to the squirrels . . .
Kelly
Kelly FYI :squerrelcrow is crap...
Peacock has been working like a champ....
If they come back I am letting peacock bite the head off of squerrlcrow and impale it on a stake...
If so I'll send pics.
Cheers
Yeah for Peacock!! I think a headless squirrelcrow impaled on a stake would detract terribly from his cuteness - lol. Would love to see those pics, tho, if it does happen!!
Kelly
Cute peacock ratfood, however I am disappointed. I thought you had a real one. People have them living in the trees around here. I think the people who owned them moved away and left them. Think that happens a lot with all kinds of animals. Too bad.
Anyway yours is cute. But I doubt that squirrels are going to be too scared of him to not eat your tomatoes.
Jeanette
Yeah we had 5 peacocks at the farm for the longest time. I loved them. The new "groundskeeper" scared them, and the donkey(Janice), and the alligator, and cows off... Family is currently getting rid of the "groundskeeper" and hopefully we can have peacocks again. They would jump way up in those misquite trees and stand guard till the sun went down. They make interesting noise too.... I wouldn't get to close to them but I loved to watch the sun go down with them. They make you forget about the BS of your daily life...
Also... Down with squirrels...
Peace
Around here we have box turtles and they love tomatoes. Not tomato plants, ripe tomatoes.
They don't hurt anything because they're vertically challenged - they can only reach a ripe tomato that's hanging within 6" or so of the ground, and that's not many of them. Being a real softie, I help the turtles (actually tortoises, I guess) by picking any ripe tomatoes that have bad spots and leaving them on the ground. We get along fine.
2 years ago I had to put bird netting completely over the tomatoes because the squirrels would go from one ripe tomato to the other taking one bite out of each one.
Then last year I planted a yellow cherry Sun Sugar tomato on the very end of the bed and that did it. They liked those so well that they would take one and sit on the trailer tongue and eat it. Every time I went out there, he was sitting there eating those little tomatoes. I have to say those were my favorite also. However, I planted 2 of the plants and they were so prolific that there was plenty for everyone. He never touched any of the others so I didn't cover them.
You should try them. They are the best.
Jeanette
Awesome peacock.
For those of you having trouble with squirrels and can't find a "peacock," you can buy one of those plastic owls (Wal Mart carries them) and place it where you are having the problem. Squirrels are lunch for owls so if they see one, they won't be dining in the area. Move him around about once a week though so the squirrels don't get wise to the fact that he never moves. The squirrels used to eat up almost all of my figs so I put one up to sit guard over them and they haven't bothered them since Mr. Hootie took up residence there (my grandson calls him "Mr. Hooters," LOL.
Lovely garden! Very nice - and fun!
I'm preparing to do battle with the squirrels - but the dog has random free rein of the back yard, and I've caught her barking into the trees. So by the time I have tomatoes, they might be scared enough to stay away. The cats chase them, but unfortunately they chase the birds away too.
Here's the toad that watched over my garden last year.
Don't know if this was the same one, but he really liked the mulch and kept vigilant watch over the hot peppers and broccoli (a.k.a cabbage worm buffet).
That's a funny thing about squirrels - we have loads of them and they don't bother my garden a bit. We live on a six-acre place with big oak trees, and we have lots of both red and grey squirrels. They've never touched a tomato or anything else in my garden.
When we lived in Southern California we had ground squirrels that burrow in the ground, and those things were pests that would eat most everything in the garden. I guess it's different kinds of squirrels in different places, and I'm lucky we don't have the tomato-eating kind here.
We also have chipmunks, and they occasionally kill a young tomato plant by knawing off the stem at ground level. I've learned to put rings made from plastic cups around my seedlings until they grow enough to be chipmunk-proof. The chipmunks are so cute I wouldn't want to hurt them, even so.
Lucky you! When the baby toads are hopping around in our field, I pick them up and put them in the veggie garden.
As far as pests go, last year we had a mouse that would take a bite out of our tomatoes when they were perfect for picking. Unfortunately for him, we put out a trap w/ peanut butter and he went to heaven with peanutbutter breath.
Ozark, I feel the same way about the chipmunks. They raid my birdfeeders all summer long; all day running up and down the wall. But they are too cute so I just put out more seed!
I have ground squirrels, and they are a pain. They like to chomp on pretty much any plant in the garden. It doesn't matter that there's acres of green stuff surrounding my little garden, they zero in on it the moment I put any plants out. They took all my lettuce, roots and all. I made the mistake of transplanting my tomatoes and peppers without spraying them with pepper spray so they were unprotected for one day, and in that time I lost 3 tomato plants and 1 pepper plant. Since I'm growing a lot of stuff this year that I can't really use pepper spray on I guess I'll try the fake owl combined with bird netting.
Dorkasaurus,
It's REALLY irritating to have your veggies stolen like that. Hope the fake owl and bird netting work. In our other house I had a problem with turtles coming up from the lake and eating my ripe tomatoes. Unfortunately, they aren't at all afraid of owls :-{ I don't have a problem with them out here, thank goodness!
The problem with those, don;t they pull the plant under by the roots? I actually watched one of my rudbeckias go down into the ground. A big plant. We don't call them ground squirrels. We call them moles. And I have found that if you plant caster beans that it keeps them out. They do not like them.
Jeanette
i havn't had problems with small animals but i always have birds fly down to eat worms and bugs. will they be a problem for me? (besids the Pooping all over?)
i also found a few grubs when tilling this year. will they eat my plants?
The birds eating worms and bugs are natural pest control. Put a birdbath out and encourage them to stay. Don't use chemicals in your garden that would harm them.
The grubs - you don't want. Smush them when you see them.
Every year i usually get a snake in my GH. Dont mind them at all. Keeps the mice out of my seeds !
I like them ( snakes) they don't bother me and i don't bother them. :)
I have lots of toads too in my melon patches . I hope one will end up in my cabbage patch this year.
of course this year is a chicken year for us also
bye bye THW
IllinoisGarden4, those grubs will attract moles and they can tear your yard and garden up pretty bad. I believe milky spore is the organic treatment to kill grubs--it's pricey but lasts a pretty long time once it's in the ground. Diaznon (sp) is the non-organic treatment but only last about 3 months. I have the occasional mole venture into my garden but I have an Eastern ribbon snake that took up residence in my garden last year and it came back this year. It seems to be doing a good job on "mole patrol," :-} I just have to be sure he knows I'm there so he can go hide somewhere when I pick my blackberries. We seem to have developed a pretty good working relationship.
Jnette: What I'm referring to is a squirrel, not a mole. Moles are disgusting creepy creatures, whereas squirrels are cute and cuddly and great at digging up my seeds and uprooting plants from the surface, not from underneath like a mole would do. They dig burrows in the ground and rarely run up a tree or building like most squirrels, preferring to spend the majority of their time on the ground (or under it). The pepper spray was applied and that will keep them from some of my plants. Based on the insect damage I'm already seeing (flea beetles I think) it's shaping up to be a fine year for garden pests. Hadn't seen a single snail here in the 3 years I've been at this location, that is until last Thursday... Can't wait till the hornworms arrive! And a few more 30+ mph winds never hurt lol. I'm frustrated but still optimistic.
Dorkasaurus,
Do you feed birds? I started doing that years ago at our other house. Here at our new house (well, almost 5 years old now but new to me, LOL) I've seen a big advantage from it. They are keeping the bug population down by quite a bit in my flower and veggie gardens. I went out a few times last year and saw the damage from a hornworm but couldn't find the worm, even with my glasses on. It didn't take long to figure out that the birds are eating them for me. Frequently when I go into my veggie garden, I scare birds out of it. My birds are doing a good job of earning their birdseed :-} So I get to enjoy watching all "my" birds plus they help me out by keeping vigil over my gardens--that's a great deal!
I don't feed the birds but they're around. I know they eat plenty of insects but they also enjoy hot peppers and the fruit trees. Netting should keep the birds and the squirrels away.
Seriously though I'm not terribly concerned. I plant about 10x more than I need because I have the space, I don't have a lot of time to tend the garden, and I'm pretty lazy so I find it easier to over plant and let the strong survive rather than guard a select few. This year I planted/am planting about 20 pepper plants, 8 tomato plants, lettuce, chard, several cucumbers, onions, carrots, corn, basil, cilantro, parsley, squash, watermelon, and pole beans...and I live alone so it's basically just for me so even if 90% is lost I'll still have too much... hence the tiny bit of optimism lol. Plus there's a pear and an apple tree on the property. It would take way more than a few hornworms, flea beetles, or squirrels to make me result to chemical warfare.
Here are some at paw-paw's farm
another
