NFRR: Garden chat.

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richard-in-cincy

Well-known member
How can petunias planted side by side have such different lifes? One flourishes, a mound of color. The other sits there, then decideds to turn brown and die. They both are in the same soil, they both get the same water. What am I doing wrong???

The year of the tomato has come crashing to an ignominious end. I started seeds in February, put my plants out in April, they grew. And now?

I have stems coming out of the ground, about 2feet of empty space, and the dried corpses of the tops tied to the stakes.

30 tomato plants. All attacked and killed by squirrels.

I am getting a cat.

 
I hate squirrels. They've chewed holes into my house twice now.

I envision the perfect vegetable garden for me as being a batting-cage type thing covered with hardware cloth and having a screen door with two rows of cinder block raised beds down the sides and a path down the middle. Only thing I can figure that would keep birds, squirrels & dogs out.

 
It might not be too late to buy tomato plants and retry, planting hot peppers

and sprinkling cayenne pepper around each plant. Seems to work for me. The squirrels hate them. Sorry :eek:(

 
They ate the pepper plants too.

I like M's description of the batting cage.

I am determined. I'm getting a cat. An outdoor one like we had on the farm. And I will continue to try to grow tomatoes!!!

All of the chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, possums, ground hogs etc. will have to come to terms with my new cat.

And I have one!!!

My friend K has a black sable stray, I met him last night, he purred in contentment.

His new name is: KLINGSOR!!!!!!

 
Hope the cat works better than dogs. Despite killing quite a few over the

years my dogs didn't seem to deter the squirrels much at all.

 
Well that is the problem since my boys are "inside" family...

They both would love nothing more than to catch some miscreant rodent in the backyard, but, alas, they are slow. Too much couch time I think. But we can't change that.

I thought Bragi was going to corner the chipmunk on the dining room patio last night, but then chipmunk ran around the corner and escaped as Bragi was honing in on his scent behind the planter.

Alas...

 
I too hate squirrels and gave up on tomatoes a long time ago, I did have some luck with cayenne

pepper in my window boxes the 2nd time. The first time they dug up all the plants the night after I planted them.

For what it's worth, my exterminator told me to get a female cat. He said they were better hunters. By the way, I don't want a cat either. My solution is to just buy vegetables at the farmers market and be done with city farming. Also my Fedex man brings me tomatoes and I bring him chocolate bars from Switzerland. Works for me!

 
peanuts. My squirrels never ate anything they shouldn't have. But I looked after them. And my

best little guy used to come garden with me. He'd follow 2 steps behind me to the garden and just sit beside me when I worked. For hours. He'd come back up to the deck and sprawl out on the carpet spread-eagle between my husband and me, just enjoying the view. And then his girlfriend would come along and sit on the other chair.

My husband would go out in the morning, sit on the deck and Blondie would jump up onto his lap for a long discussion.

These guys never damaged a single thing. They got a couple of peanuts at 10:30 am every day in the winter and knew they'd get nothing all summer, but they must have bothered someone else.

 
Petunias and pansies are prone to phytophthora fungus, which causes the sudden death you describe

especially if you plant them in the same space year to year. It's so frustrating because they start off well and then start dying off one by one. It's a real problem here is CA because we plant pansies and violas in fall, and petunias in spring, speeding up the cycle.

Give the soil a 2-year break from pansies, violas and petunias and then rotate them. Or only plant in pots with fresh potting soil.

I don't know a cure for squirrels but I'm sure you can find recipes for them online.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora

 
I feel your pain Richard, they take a bite out of each ripe fig on my tree. That...

a bite out of the few left after the deer finish feasting!

 
Richard, you will LOVE this story...we have a friend who is an avid city gardener. 1 summer some yrs

ago, Bill began having trouble with a wild rabbit that was nibbling on lots of his vegetables. When finally at his wit's end, he decided to surround his backyard garden with a chicken wire fence to keep the rabbit out. Took Bill a day or two to erect this fence, and he was so pleased with himself for the ultimate revenge on the rabbit. A few days passed, and Bill began noticing that his vegetables were STILL being eaten! Then he realized that he had built his fence AROUND the rabbit so it was inside the fence and having a heyday with all his ripe & tasty veggies. Yes, it was the counter-revenge of the rabbit! We teased Bill about doing that for literally years.

Why not try to trap your squirrel? I haven't had any squirrel trouble, but am constantly battling chipmunks that eat my pansies & roses and other edible flowers. I've trapped 52 during the past 6 summers.

At the present time, we have a neighbor's cat who is good at stalking chipmunks, and Frampton caught 1 last summer and 2 this summer in our back yard. This kitty always brings his kill to show me so I can oooh and ahhh over it and praise him for being such an excellent hunter. I also give him a can of gourmet cat food now & again to keep him climbing back over the 6-foot privacy fence that separates his owners' yard with ours. It's a wonderful joint-venture! Good luck with your cat--I hope he likes to eat squirrel!

 
yay, you adopted. welcome Klingsor to the family! what if you fed the squirrels? would well fed

and watered critters leave the veggies alone?(stop screaming) or did they do the damage just for fun, cuz there weren't any tomatoes or peppers yet. are they looking for water? one year it was so very dry in June up here and the mice would eat up my petunias for the juicy insides.

 
Just last night something ate every leaf off of my frican violet (that had just started to flower)

and also every single flower off of my other African violet. Arrrggggh! So annoying!

Then it ate the green beans that I had just harvested. (First harvest.)

 
we feed them peanuts in the winter too. found out they stashed them under a wooden pallet

that was holding some firewood. they don't seem to bother anything, but this is at our cabin and I haven't planted much other than flowers. I have lilies that are doing great and setting buds, and just pray that the moose don't find them.

 
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