Garden critter delemia
Ok, so I have discovered chipmunks are eating my strawberries. On Friday night, there were 7 big beautiful ripe red strawberries. When I checked the garden on Saturday morning, 5 were gone. Now I have taken precautions and have a fence around the garden and netting over the strawberries, but what ever ate them scaled the fence and pulled the strawberries up through the netting (I know this because there were little pieces of strawberries stuck to the netting).
This year we have seen many more bunnies and chipmunks because our two hawks from last year nested somplace else this spring. We think they ate all of these critters last year, because we had none of these problems.
The delemia comes in because I have been told of a solution and I am a little quesy over it. I was told that if we take a large pan of water and place peanuts in it, the chipmunks will go for the peanuts and leave the garden alone. I was fine with this plan when I thought they would eat the peanuts and get full. However it turns out that the chipmunks go for the peanuts and drown. It is supposed to work very well. Now I don't want the chipmunks eating my garden or my flowers, but that just seems a little inhuman to me.
So what do my loyal blog readers think?
posted by VJ @ 6:20 AM
5 Comments:
The only thing I can think of is to use a fine wire mesh in which strawberries cannot be pulled through and strong enough that the chipmunks cannot eat through. Other than that I would look on the Internet to see if there are traps that can be purchased that allow you to capture the little thieves and set them free in another part of the county and away from your garden. The pan of water is just not right.
Wow, Sam I thought for sure you would be on board with killing them. I am using a fine mesh netting. Maybe I'll see if the husband can get some wire mesh instead. Just wait until you move up here and see all the havoc the chipmunks can make...
Can you do anything to attrack another hawk? Then they will do all the killing for you and you'll have no guilt.
I agree with LogoAnn - it's the circle of life thing. Where can you find a hawk anyways - not like you can order one on the internet and make it nest near your house.
I'm thinking maybe a battery operated hawk that runs off of solar cells. Every ten or fifteen minutes it turns its' head and stretches it's wings, and makes a hawk sound or something. Put it on the corner post in the garden - just can't find it though. Closest thing is one of those plastic owls, but I think in secret animals just see those and laugh... "Oooohhh, I'm SOOO Scared!!! Hahahahaha!!!
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