This year I have had a rodent problem in the garden , two years ago it was an ant trouble . Now the ants are under control condition but the mice and packrats are out of control even though I go along to trap them and I ’ve let a lot of them . I ’ve never had a trouble like this before in my veggie garden but luckily I have had a super fat twelvemonth .
Actually next year , 2021 , is formally ‘ The Year of the Rat ’ in the Chinese Zodiac but it might as well be this twelvemonth . The mouse and rats have been eating hole in many of the veggies .
Rat equipment casualty on a Cherokee green tomato
Rat damage on a Cherokee green tomato
Tomatoes - My tomatoes have been hit firmly but thankfully I have lots of them . I think scum bag are destroy some of my tomatoes and on other tomatoes there are little bites so I think they are mice - either mode I ca n’t betray them . I ’d be thinking , “ I will look one more twenty-four hours to reap some particular tomato ” , and then the mouse / rat go it first so I ’ve had to resort to taking them a few days early and let the tomatoes end up ripening inside the business firm . I have too many tomato plant plants to completely envelop each plant to keep them out . Very frustrating .
Pepper damage
Peppers- I have to trim down out part of the peppers that has been use up too . They eat on a hole at the top of the capsicum and get the seeds . They do n’t seem to care if the peppers are still green or red . So I ’ve resorted to tacking down the black pepper bottom with some hail netting and using 2″ x 4″ panel to keep the netting snug at the bottom on the ground so they ca n’t get under it . So far so good .
Pepper damage
Butternut squash - Then there are the butternut winter squash . They are almost ready to glean . I ’m waiting for the skins to get that beautiful butterscotch gloss . Well some mouse has been attacking them too . They nibble little holes in some of them . So I ’ve resorted to whole wrapping each butternut tree squash in part of row screening to keep them from getting them .
I have not been able to constitute any lettuces in my lettuce shade garden this season either . They first ate all my Fava noodle last spring and so I have had to forgo growing clams in that area . Instead I ’m going to found the lettuce that I ’ve started this fall into my covered coldframe up by the house . In a few more weeks I ’ll also embed lettuce in my greenhouse ( it ’s still to warm inside the greenhouse to put them there but I am quick when it chill down more ) .
So it count like either pin down them or wrapping your plant up tight to keep them out industrial plant . I would never use poisonous substance as we have a CT that also hunts them and our neighbour ’s dog too . They could die from eating a poison rodent . Plus birds of prey like war hawk would pass away also .
I have get word from other nurseryman in this area that they too have had rodent problems this year . How about you ? Have you had trouble with rodents in your veg garden this class ?
