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  • From: "Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Garden pests, four-legged variety
  • Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:11:56 -0800

I'm telling you, old freezers! No moles! No rabbits! And it's good for the environment, you're recycling <g>

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene GeRue" <genegerue AT ruralize.com>


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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