Dadgum fed up - critter offensive

MamaHawk

MamaHawk

Member
Location
A corner lot in Akron, OH
Hardiness zone
6b
I'm pretty sure a skunk is digging around in my wildflower pots, due to the four inch DEEP hole in one pot...and it's either the culprit of eating my seedlings or the chipmunks/squirrels/rabbits/birds are. We have next to no deer here, I think, given the more urban nature of this suburb...in any case I haven't seen any compared to when we lived in Parma Ohio - you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting one because there were no dead cats, ONLY DEER.

Anyway.

I got hardware cloth, chicken wire, fence posts, bamboo stakes, steel rod stakes, netting, and netting stakes. What the heck do I do with them all....I'm debating a fence/border vs. a cover of sorts. The garden itself isn't very big, probably 8ft by 4ft? You'd think I would've measured it by now. Anyway, any tips or warnings before I go to town doing...whatever it is I'll do?
 
It may not be suitable for you but the best solution by far I have found is outside dogs...the kind that the "sophisticated city folks" drop off to starve.

Then the next problem is stinky dogs :eek: but that new product Pooph or something like that on Amazon takes the stink right out. It works.

Maybe in a 4x8 I would consider electric fencing if I couldn't get dogs on the scene. Easy to put up and relatively cheap... and effective as long as you keep it free of anything touching it like weeds.
 
Now I know what went wrong. We have two kittens, growing up and going outside now. They don't scare the birds, just make them a bit wary, but a cat would never stay in an eight by four space.
One of my first gardens in Brixton was not much bigger than that and the previous owner kept a dog in it, it was all trodden down hard until I took down the eight foot fences and dug it over. We lived between two houses that were part of a charity for teenage black kids and housed the girls one side and the boys the other. Next morning there was a row of footprints across the dug garden. I made a gap in the wall each side at the end where a path went across and used the bricks to extend it, one of the boys came out and asked what I was doing so I explained I was making it so they didn't have to walk on the garden. He looked astonished, but they were good as gold after that, the girls used to 'abduct' our little boy who was about the same age as yours is and play with him for hours, and the boys would turn their music down when he went for his afternoon nap.

My first crop there was runner beans, pole beans, they might work for you, out of reach for most things.
 
olly-buckle said:
Now I know what went wrong. We have two kittens, growing up and going outside now. They don't scare the birds, just make them a bit wary, but a cat would never stay in an eight by four space.
One of my first gardens in Brixton was not much bigger than that and the previous owner kept a dog in it, it was all trodden down hard until I took down the eight foot fences and dug it over. We lived between two houses that were part of a charity for teenage black kids and housed the girls one side and the boys the other. Next morning there was a row of footprints across the dug garden. I made a gap in the wall each side at the end where a path went across and used the bricks to extend it, one of the boys came out and asked what I was doing so I explained I was making it so they didn't have to walk on the garden. He looked astonished, but they were good as gold after that, the girls used to 'abduct' our little boy who was about the same age as yours is and play with him for hours, and the boys would turn their music down when he went for his afternoon nap.

My first crop there was runner beans, pole beans, they might work for you, out of reach for most things.
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That's so lovely of those kids! I'm glad you were around them and they got to be around you and your family :)

I'm working on a few pole beans and bush beans as backup, and I'm about to install some form of fencing, maybe, tomorrow. Maybe I'll just make a frame cage I can set over seedlings? I'm not sure how to go about it; I feel like every time I address one threat, there's another that requires a completely different tactic.
 
Well I am thinking video cameras and electricity since you have that hardware cloth. Maybe a small solar cell charging electric fence charger plugged into that hardware cloth? The video is really just for me.
 
@MamaHawk I have just read all through this thread again, and I think I've decided what I would do here. I would make a building as large as possible, with opening windows, and shade netting facility - similar to a greenhouse.
I think it would be easier to secure. A raised bed for plants, as well as staging for pots, a water butt for rainwater, and a comfy chair to have a rest in.
 
Tetters said:
@MamaHawk I have just read all through this thread again, and I think I've decided what I would do here. I would make a building as large as possible, with opening windows, and shade netting facility - similar to a greenhouse.
I think it would be easier to secure. A raised bed for plants, as well as staging for pots, a water butt for rainwater, and a comfy chair to have a rest in.
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A timber frame covered in polythene sheet with a staple gun? I suggested it to my missus, "We'll have nothing looking like that in my garden!". She shows me adverts for greenhouses with four figure price tags.
 
olly-buckle said:
A timber frame covered in polythene sheet with a staple gun? I suggested it to my missus, "We'll have nothing looking like that in my garden!". She shows me adverts for greenhouses with four figure price tags.
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If her bank account shows the same kind of figures - there should be no problem, otherwise divorce could be cheaper, as long as there's enough left over for some timber and poly-tunnel plastic...oh and you can borrow our staple gun 😊
 
skinyea said:
do you have a gun?

Fence can be made for fairly cheap.
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We do, but we also have close neighbors 😅

@Tetters and @olly-buckle - I would LOVE a greenhouse - a conservatory, even. I fear that isn't in my near future, sadly. However, I did trash-pick another small greenhouse (with SHELVES this time!) and I'm delighted with myself! I also hijacked our weird little foyer-welcoming area as my greenhouse room before my husband knew what I was up to, heheheh.

The seedlings may go in today, wish me luck!!!
 
Tetters said:
If her bank account shows the same kind of figures - there should be no problem, otherwise divorce could be cheaper, as long as there's enough left over for some timber and poly-tunnel plastic...oh and you can borrow our staple gun 😊
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Her bank account is a lot healthier than mine, probably six figures. No chance of divorce, we simply lived together for the first forty years, then decided it would be a good idea to have some legal basis, we are now 'Civil partners', sometimes more civil than others :) :)
 
I wish you all the luck in the world and applaud your determination @MamaHawk . Where there's a will there's a way.
A couple of years ago a load of my flowers were pecked off by a family of partridges. I mumbled lots of bad words, but then watched in amazement as the plants all thickened up from their extra 'pruning' and I ended up with twice as many flowers as before. Ain't nature wonderful 😁
 
Well:

Are you guessing as to what the real enemy is or do you know? You can assume it is a rabbit and put in all the rabbit proof fence in the world only to learn it was really a squirrel or chip monk and that rabbit fence is useless.

In suburban areas rabbits, squirrles, chipmonks, and shrews tend to do the most damage for me.
 
I guess just because we have had motion detecting sprinklers for so long I forgot to mention they are devices I occasionally need to dig out of the shed. Of course you will get startled and wet once or twice yourself before you really remember to turn them off before going into the garden. They work really well and with clean sensors have no problem with the adjustable sensitivity all the way down to detecting motion even from birds.
 
Mr_Yan said:
Well:

Are you guessing as to what the real enemy is or do you know? You can assume it is a rabbit and put in all the rabbit proof fence in the world only to learn it was really a squirrel or chip monk and that rabbit fence is useless.

In suburban areas rabbits, squirrles, chipmonks, and shrews tend to do the most damage for me.
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I was guessing chipmunks, but when I found a 4 inch hole dug in one of my flower pots, Google told me it was probably a skunk. So, I went with a chicken wire fence around the perimeter (low, I'll deal with deer later), and my newest addition - Dollar Tree wastebaskets! They're stackable, cheap, bendable, and best of all, tightly knit metal (aluminum?) with a better weave than hardware cloth and easier to deal with!

Which is how bugs ate the leaves off everything and it died anyway. :|

So you aren't wrong, knowing the enemy is good - there's just always yet another enemy one step ahead of me.

@Dirtmechanic Mayhaps I'll invest in those down the line; for now I know my daughter would set them off too frequently!
 
This appears to be the year of the slug and snail here. We seem to have lost all of our runner beans, in spite of constantly laying traps for them. The horrible slimy sods are appearing from every crack in the walls, and I swear they produce more offspring every day. It seems like a problem that just won't go away.
It's not so bad when they run riot in the flower beds, because those always seem to spring back into action, but it can be devastating with veggies.
 
Tetters said:
This appears to be the year of the slug and snail here. We seem to have lost all of our runner beans, in spite of constantly laying traps for them. .
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Rumor has it that a few beans (about 5 of them) escaped your garden o_O , the entire UK :cry:, and crossed the southern border of the USA :alien::mad: to plead for asylum in the garden of the Meadowlarks.

Asylum was granted to a select three immediately 😇 but the other two are being held in captivity in refrigeration pending the arrival of fall weather when their case will be re-examined. The Biden administration also needs some for their number count. :eek:

The three asylum grantees, who were assessed a reproduction tax which is due in 60 days, are being watched carefully for any signs of required germination that must precede the act of paying the reproduction tax 🐣🌱

The asylum grantees are being housed in 100% organic conditions with access to soil that is certified "No N P K required":D

Notifications of any change in the status of these three asylum grantees will be provided forthwith to @Tetters and @Zigs 😍
following appropriate @gardenchatforum protocols. :)
 
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