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  • From: <eureka AT hctc.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Garden pests, four-legged variety
  • Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:09:55 -0500

I have not heard this story. Which Texans protected armadillos? Most of the Texans I know stay up all night to shoot them. Utah, our golden Lab, used to crunch them like Dax, but sadly she passed at 13 years of age on Wednesday, last day of spring. The bunnies have found our melon patch and damaged several plants yesterday. My husband is off to the hardware store for wire fencing before we lose any more.

--Sage
Way Out in Texas

On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:59:15 -0500
Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com> wrote:
As many gardeners know, the better the soil one creates, the more attractive to certain pests. In my case, moles and armadillos. To thwart the moles I am conducting an experiment--putting all of my urine onto the sod area at the top of the nearly perfect kitchen garden directly out from the kitchen window. The results of that experiment are as yet unknown but appear promising.

Next up are the armadillos. Thanks to Texans who protected them--grr-- and Midwest warming, they have overpopulated their southern habitat and have moved north. When I came here thirty years ago no one had ever seen one in the county. They are now one of the common roadkills, joining turtles, coons, possums, skunks and squirrels. Insufficient numbers are killed by cars and they have overrun woods, pastures, lawns and gardens.

When Dax was alive he and Benny would run them down and Dax would one- crunch them--over forty-five in a two-month period. Benny is now twelve and spends most of every night resting for the hard day following, which consists mostly of resting in a cool place. Yes, I need a couple of pups.

After replanting the devastated kitchen garden several times I bought two-foot fence and a bunch of three-foot metal posts and installed the fence on all parts other than the raised stone wall in the front. They pushed under the fence. I replanted and installed pins of scrap wood and nails, driving the bottom of the fence into the ground. They found a weak place. I replanted. I then spent the better part of a day loading, hauling and placing rocks--too heavy for them to move with their hoglike thick neck muscles--at the outside bottom of the fence.

Three mornings now without having to replant the garden. Unless they learn how to climb or fly I think it is good. Now I have only to occasionally straighten up the grass clippings that serve as a mulch to keep weeds down out from the rocks; they still make their nightly rounds and hope springs eternal.

Thinking I have now created a garden fortress, I stepped out yesterday afternoon to see a rabbit leap down from the wall and run away. He had spotted the waning lettuce and couldn't resist. Sigh.

I'm thinking maybe a welded-wire roofed cage with quarter-inch hardware cloth affixed on the interior and with two-foot deep concrete footings and a padlocked entry gate.
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