*$%^*#!@ whistle pigs!

[beac]

Even without any tempting tomatoes or tender green beans or tendrilly peas, the wretched ground hogs are STILL making my life miserable.

I have three pots of phlox that have overwintered beautifully for several years now. They were all lush and lovely with many leafy stalks. Until this morning when I walked out at 7am to see a fat furry butt racing down my steps and every darn one of the plants stripped just about bare.




I HATE ground hogs!!!

[Retrograde]

1. Sometimes I feel like my garden is the local wildlife cafe

The squirrels and racoons strip the avocado tree, the jays get the sour cherries. Luckily our western pocket gophers are mouse-sized, so the cat earns his keep by sleeping in the garden and annoying them (hasn't caught any, but the gopher population is down.

I don't even try cabbage anymore, after the one year I grew a picture-perfect Savoy cabbage that the racoons ate the center out of the night before I planned to harvest it. They won't touch the zucchini, though.

[intheflow]

2. I had a similar beastly groundhog when I lived in Massachusetts.

Ate my morning glories and columbines without mercy to me!

I moved to Colorado where my big garden enemy is now searing heat and lack of humidity, so I never did figure out to thwart that groundhog. However, if I were to encounter something similar now that I have more gardening experience, I might try:

a) laying chicken wire on the ground to thwart the beastie from tunneling up and eating the leaves. (Cutting out holes for the plants.)

b) strategically placing moth balls en masse around the garden because I hear they hate the smell.

c) spraying the leaves with diluted soap solution. Maybe I'd add a little hot pepper sauce to the solution, too.

Will any of these suggestions work? Dunno. But it's what I'd try if I were in your shoes.