|
|
As I checked out my garden several days ago, I noted that both raised beds had successes and failures. The first carrot planting had been a failure, but a second planting was working. The wax beans were flourishing and looked great. Cucumbers also thrived, but the zucchini looked weak.
Thank goodness for the lettuce, I told myself and made my way over to the other raised bed where a row of lettuce was ready to pick.
Imagine my surprise when I saw the lettuce I’d planned to pick had been mowed down. My husband also noticed. “What happened to the lettuce?” He came to my side, and we stared, aghast, at the green nubbins that had once been beautiful lettuce leaves.
We concluded that a critter had done this dastardly deed, but which? A red squirrel? Not really. They were too busy pigging out on the peanuts we feed them. A chipmunk? Also didn’t seem quite feasible, but I did some research and discovered that chipmunks will eat garden vegetables. However, the amount of eaten lettuce indicated a larger creature.
Then Dick remembered that several weeks ago, he’d spied the tail end of an animal disappear under the old cabin. Could we have a ground hog living nearby?
After some research I discovered some interesting facts about ground hogs also known as wood chucks, whistle pigs and land beavers. They eat wild plants and are voracious eaters, ultimately fattening up for a winter hibernation. According to a website called AnimalSake, they also eat flowering plants and vegetables, including alfalfa, lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, melons, cucumbers. I knew it. This was the culprit.
I decided to salvage some of the shorn lettuce plants and move them to a container on the backyard picnic table. I thought this an excellent idea. A woodchuck would find it a challenge to climb. As I filled several containers with potting soil and set the ravaged lettuce plants in their new place and watered them, I hoped they would thrive.
Meanwhile, a neighbor reported seeing a woodchuck disappear down a nearby driveway, and I knew I’d done the right thing.
Leave a Reply