Groundhog!!

Well, my garden WAS coming along.  

 I had planted, leaf lettuce, spinach, peas, pole beans, zucchini, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, butternut squash, kale and 5 tomato plants.

Saturday I went out and weeded it, everything was growing lovely.   I even discovered  my first zucchini starting !!   Yes, I was excited, the mushroom soil we added did the trick.  :)

Sunday while taking my cat for his daily walk around our yard, I discovered............

my lettuce was GONE! 

 Kale was chewed back, green beans and peas were topped off and zucchini leaves were chewed.   I saw RED !!  I found that the local groundhog had burrowed under my fence !!!

Living in the country is great, but man oh man, I do not like sharing my garden with the local wildlife.

So...........I did a search.   There is nothing you can do to stop the groundhog from burrowing, after all that is what they do.  Grrrrrrrr.......but what you can do is try to persuade him to leave your garden alone.

They do not like noise, so I tied aluminum foil pans all around the garden and added a wind chime on a shepherds hook also.  I soaked rags with ammonia and stuffed them into the fence.

Did you know, cats are a natural predator of groundhogs?   :)   Did I mention I have cats?   :)

No, I did not set my cats free to go after the groundhog, but what I did read is that if you take their USED litter and sprinkle it around the garden and toss it in the groundhog hole, the kritter will leave!

There are other alternatives too

Epson salts - sprinkle them around and on your plants, around the perimeter of the garden as well.

Cayenne pepper - 4 spoons of pepper to 2 cups of water.  Spray around your garden and on your plants.

Then you can do what my husband did......he purchased Red Fox Urine.   We are waiting for it to arrive and will fill you in on the results.

As of yesterday, the groundhog was not back, BUT I have not yet checked today...........I am feeling a bit leery about checking


www.CozyExpressions.com