Wife looked out at noon to see a groundhog messing with flowers on our deck.
Highly unusual as our deck is 10 ft. off the ground and he had to climb stairs.
He was a youngster and I checked the area for signs of burrowing and found none so will not bring out the Hav-a-hart.
I have a double flight of stairs leading to my deck where I grow pretty much everything. Groundhogs are not daunted and neither are the raccoons.
We have had problems with raccoons but never groundhogs. None of our plantings are edible.
Being out in the country I usually bring out a 12 gauge or 22. I have trapped a few criters like a skunk a few weeks ago. Usually if one critter is around,there are more like it somewhere close by.
Other than my pellet gun, I cannot shoot in the back yard as too many neighbors. I have trapped practically everything in the past. Can be annoying like last time I was after a squirrel getting into the garage I ended up catching a raccoon and then the time I was after a raccoon and ended up with a skunk. They say skunks don't spray when confined but did not want to trust my luck and was able to open the trap from the top of the deck. Besides she had 3 kids running around the trap and they did not leave. Once I must have caught 4 squirrels before I got the groundhog I was after. Now I trap only when they become a problem.
they will climb and the young are usually easily trapped or hunted.
even the adults are not that bright. alas they can do a lot of damage (not as bad as some other animals though).
songbird
Boron Elgar wrote: ...
for raccoons that's like setting out a plate of sardines. i often see them climbing.
songbird
This is the time of year moms are weaning their little ones and the little go searching for their own territory. So, the young ones may decide to settle near you if they are comfortable there.
I was in a deer stand before sunrise and heard something walking in, knew it was not a deer, took out my camera and got a picture of two eyes in the flash. Raccoon climbed the tree next to me to rest in a hallow maybe 30 ft up. I got a picture of him peaking out but cannot find it.
I shot a couple of groundhogs while out bow hunting. The smallest I took back to camp and had for lunch the next day.
Stephen Peek wrote: ...
we have a large drainage ditch that runs through the property so they dig burrows in the banks. once established they won't leave easily. i end up having to hunt them and their little ones.
i have a fence up which keeps them mostly away but the fence isn't totally enclosing the gardens so they come visit at times and i scare them off or hunt them. if they come back enough times they'll get buried someplace in a garden. :(
trapping and relocating just doesn't accomplish anything as there are always plenty more. the fences help the most but i have to check them once in a while to make sure they've not dug new tunnels underneath.
songbird
I relocate in parkland areas. Laws vary and here you can trap and kill but not relocate. One day I released a squirrel in the park next to a county cop who I told that I was releasing a prisoner and he said nothing so enforcement is lax.
Spot on. I put up a fence on the stairs at one point and just wound up with claw marks on the edges of the deck and it devised a way around.
Boron Elgar wrote: ...
they are always around here.
i have put out some ant bait stations to keep some little brown ant and carpenter ants from coming back and the raccoon decided it wanted to eat the bait (which smells like peanut butter) so it chewed one of them open to get at the bait. it was pretty thick plastic and it did get in but it didn't repeat the effort for another trap that was nearby but there was a bite mark in it.
always some new adventure... :)
songbird
I consider your last statement as something that should be printed on every gardener's t-shirt.
Wife wanted me to block stairs but I told her it was rare to see a groundhog climbing them and I know you cannot deter raccoons. I will tell her that another good reason is we may get scratches on the deck which is Trex.
...
one reason i really enjoy gardening is that it puts you in close contact with the world and if you're observant you can really have a lot of fun figuring out how to get a crop from various plants.
my own biggest things to enjoy planting and growing are strawberries, beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, squash, melons and peas. add in some greens and you've got a pretty good chance of getting something to work out and you can often pick varieties that will survive bug damage and diseases and other things that happen.
i've been gardening most of my life and as of yet while some issues are a challenge we've not had complete failures because we do grow a variety of things and also because we have fences. if we didn't have fences the deer would do a lot more damage to the vegetable crops.
i work mostly with growing and cross-breeding beans. i have a lot of different gardens and different soil conditions so that makes me able to evaluate a lot of different varieties and to try things out. this past spring someone from Poland adopted two of my cross-breeds so this has been fun to see my babies blooming on another continent. :)
songbird
once in a while they break things trying to get at a wasp or hornet nest. just yesterday Mom had to pick up one of her things that had gotten knocked over and torn apart because it had a nest in it.
songbird
Years ago before we had large garbage cans supplied by the garbage company raccoons would get into the garbage. Neighbor said one chased her into the house. Rabies is endemic and people within a mile of our house have been bitten by rabid raccoons.
I do not always grow, intending to get large returns, as there is only the two of us and I probably have enough jam to last a lifetime. I am not fond of canned tomatoes and do not even bother with pickles these days. I do vac pack and freeze.
By goals focus on growing weird things. I have some of the strangest tomatoes ever growing this year, because I seeded a bunch of "heirloom" cherries in the early spring and planted those seeds to see what I got.
I'll plant anything from seed or that I think I can grow.. Right now I have some rambutan pits that have started to come up with shoots,, two date palms starting from packaged dates I got at Trader Joe's, a chunk of galangal that is coming up, so that I have some fresh all winter.
Squash and melons are all in the past. The critters get them, even when a rise them in bets onto frames. Too much effort and too much disappointment. Breaks my heart, but I have learned to live with it.
I have had failures due to critters- like the just-before-a-frost Brussels sprout stalks stripped clean by the groundhogs. I now do almost all my growing in tubs up on the deck. It cuts down on some predation, but not all. Mouse and rat traps placed around likely targets scare off some critters.
One of the most wicked diseases, though, is the wilt that I get on cukes and tomatoes. I am diligent about keeping leaves off the soil and watering, but I cannot control the heat, humidity and rain. I experiment with varieties each summer and save seed from plants that I think do best.
I have seen your many posts about the beans you grow. They are always interesting reads.
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