Something is digging in my raised bed veggie gardens...
I had put fencing around all but one of them, just didn't get around to the last one. By 'fencing' I mean light netting supported by bamboo poles at the corners. It did the trick, but it was SUCH a pain and so in the way, plus it made it hard to trim the lawn at the edge of the boxes, even with the whippersnipper there was just long grass climbing up the sides of the boxes...
The one unfenced box had not been dug for ages, and I'd heard that it's only a real problem when seedlings are small (and they're big now), so a week ago I took down the fences from the rest of them. Sweet relief!
But... uh... the mysterious digger is back.
Every morning I'll find anywhere from 3 to 10 little holes spread through the beds. They are usually right up next to a plant -- most often the marigolds (which I just added a week ago) or the tomatoes, but anything seems fair game. So far no permanent damage has been done, it never seems to actually hurt the plants, but surely it's digging around in the root system so that can't be IDEAL.
It's not our cats. I suspected one of them, but we kept him inside for 2 days when he had a head wound healing, and the holes still appeared.
It's not the neighbour's dog.
It *might* be squirrels, there are lots of those around here. Do squirrels dig in that kind of pattern?
It's never several holes close together. It will be like 2 holes on opposite ends of one box, one hole in another box, etc.
What's he looking for??? LOL... And more importantly, what can I do about it?
I had put fencing around all but one of them, just didn't get around to the last one. By 'fencing' I mean light netting supported by bamboo poles at the corners. It did the trick, but it was SUCH a pain and so in the way, plus it made it hard to trim the lawn at the edge of the boxes, even with the whippersnipper there was just long grass climbing up the sides of the boxes...
The one unfenced box had not been dug for ages, and I'd heard that it's only a real problem when seedlings are small (and they're big now), so a week ago I took down the fences from the rest of them. Sweet relief!
But... uh... the mysterious digger is back.
Every morning I'll find anywhere from 3 to 10 little holes spread through the beds. They are usually right up next to a plant -- most often the marigolds (which I just added a week ago) or the tomatoes, but anything seems fair game. So far no permanent damage has been done, it never seems to actually hurt the plants, but surely it's digging around in the root system so that can't be IDEAL.
It's not our cats. I suspected one of them, but we kept him inside for 2 days when he had a head wound healing, and the holes still appeared.
It's not the neighbour's dog.
It *might* be squirrels, there are lots of those around here. Do squirrels dig in that kind of pattern?
It's never several holes close together. It will be like 2 holes on opposite ends of one box, one hole in another box, etc.
What's he looking for??? LOL... And more importantly, what can I do about it?
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