I have to downsize the garden this year and thought about putting in pumpkins to take up some space. I live next to a railroad track which is a groundhog highway. There's always another one and being in the city limited ways to get rid of them. They love melon vines so that's out. Anybody know if they feel the same about pumpkins?
i'm sure they'll eat them if they can find them. put a fence around them when they are young and you'll be fine. by the time the vine gets bigger the groundhogs will have other things to eat.
songbird
They not only eat pumpkin vines, they will come back later to eat any pumpkins that might actually have set.
The only food they seem to prefer to garden plantings is mulberry leaves.
I can tolerate most of the wildlife around here, even the rabbits. Groundhogs are the exception. My daughter, the zoology student, made a very nice study skin from one of our local groundhogs.
after having more experience with intense groundhog pressure i can report more information on what they seem to be doing and ignoring here.
and to get to the topic of the OP first regarding squash/pumpkins they did not eat any of the seedlings we sprouted by direct planting, we put fabric netting over them before they sprouted to keep the chipmunks out of them. after they had several leaves we left them uncovered. the groundhogs left them alone until several deer ate some of the leaves. i suspect that smell clued in the groundhogs and from then on we had some leaves eaten, but they left the stems and older leaves alone so the plants have kept growing and are now flowering.
as for the rest of the unfenced gardens we've had some of the beans eaten by groundhogs and a few of those i did replant. they eat the fresh sprouted leaves at the tips but ignore the older leaves and stems. same for the peas.
i didn't really notice them in the straw- berries, but they could have eaten them. it did not make any difference to me as we had enough (i have three fairly large patches of them, two are not fenced and one is inside the fenced gardens).
they also have done some munching on the alfalfa and trefoil, but that is ok with me as that whole patch is for green manure and if the deer, rabbits or whatever eat some of it then that's just how it goes.
inside the fenced gardens the youngest groundhogs learned how to climb through the fence and so they've kept the lettuce, beets and pak choi trimmed back, some of the beans and peas have had their fresh leaves nipped off, but most of the plants are still alive and are flowering.
they seem to have ignored the onions, garlic, and the tomatoes. i'm not sure about the fennel, but it looks to be ok.
i don't think they did much damage to the winter wheat or winter rye. they seem more interested in the clovers, plantains, dandelions that remain in the little grassy/ mowed areas we have left. they don't graze them as closely as the rabbits do.
we'll see how the rest of the season goes, if they'll get after the squash blossoms or fruits, etc.
i have thinned the population quite a bit now and gotten rid of one of their den sites. also plugged up a way they were using to get into the yard so they have a bit more of a challenge to get into the gardens.
in a perfect world i'd have a better fence and the drainage ditches would be filled. :) some year...
songbird
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