Growing Appetite

by Author

Boe

Brenda

Les

Valria

Some garden pests can not be eradicated with egg shells or tubs of beer.
The neighborhood cat or squirrel for instance can do a great deal of damage digging, burying, shitting among other things but few pests do as much damage as the Raccoon. I have been battling one in my garden for quite a few years. The short list of damage includes breaking branches on the nectarine and peach trees (cause really he is too heavy to be climbing such little trees), eating all or part of each peach and nectarine; he has dug up lettuce, potatoes, beets….besides everything newly planted seed he seems to trounce on and dig up, eating the bean seeds each and every year. Last year for instance I planted the beans 5 times before they were in the ground long enough to sprout and I have planted them 3 times so far this year, the initial planting and then again on Saturday oh and on Sunday after he came back and threw a party Saturday night.

“The Raccoon” has torn up all the red plastic mulch around the tomatoes I put down earlier this year as an experiment. He chews on the watering can (it too is plastic) and someone told me yesterday they could very well be chewing on the plastic for the oil/calories in it. That, I think was very sound advise as he always goes for whatever is plastic in my yard until the veggies are big enough to devour.

This last Saturday he pretty much ate every ripe strawberry I had, there was strawberry shrapnel everywhere on Sunday morning. He also dug up the newly planted fig tree and again ate the bean seeds. I was just glad the corn wasn’t up yet…..

So what to do about this kind of pest is difficult. The city says you can’t and I quote, “transport wild animals” so even the Havehart animal cages designed for them you can trap them and have the city come kill them and let you dispose of them but you can’t do it yourself, nor can you “transport” it. Over the years I have tried trapping it, I have left lights and a radio on, I have set up a scarecrow (yea that didn’t work), I have slept with the window open so my dog would alert me and I could go outside in the middle of the night and run it off. I have tried “chicken balls” which is chicken skin filled with red chili, Tabasco, and anything else hot you can think of. They are then tied with string and left out for the Raccoon to “find”, burn his hands, eyes, mouth and decide this is a bad yard and not come back. HA-HA-HA. Those didn’t work and I had to pick up disgusting chicken skin strewn about my yard. Oh, I also bought coyote urine on-line, that worked until it rained, which here is often.

I was so fed up on Sunday I did set my Havehart trap and then I re-homed him down to the state park, I don’t really consider this “transporting” and it may only be to justify it to myself, but really he is in the same basic neighborhood but perhaps even better digs down there.

Just about to be “Re-Homed”

If he comes back and/or if the neighbors cat(s) don’t stay out, my next attempt is going to be this snazzy thing I found at the nursery, it is quite spendy but sounds worth it. It is a Water Scarecrow, a motion activated sprinkler and it is supposed to work both night and day. If I end up buying and installing it I’ll let you know how it works. If any of you have used it please feel free to comment on how it works, I for one would like to know before dropping 75 bucks on it.