"Garden" people?

[HideHunter]

I've come to the conclusion, as a group, "someone" on here knows the answer to everything.

I am not a gardener. I burned out on gardens by the time I was 12. Swore I'd never spend another moment in one. Then, my wife retired. She's not a gardener either. Last couple years we've had a little patch with a couple cucumber plants, 3 tomatoes, a few radishes, few pole beans... I've discovered when you have "critters" - you have problems. So - now we have a fence.

Early this spring I planted three tomato plants. They lasted one night. cutworms.. more plants - tin foil - no more problems.

Two days ago, I discovered one of the plants broken/cut (?) cut off about 4" high - top just laying there. Next night - another. Last night - the last. Using my amazing powers of deduction - I finally decided "something" must being doing this.

Answer to everything is on the WWW (thanks Al)... This - not so much. Lot of people said "deer" - ain't no freaking deer - ate the stem off and left the top lay. Lot of people said "birds".. I'm not buying it. Got to be a rodent of some kind.. Too high for mice, probably too high for vole - rat maybe? chipmunk?

Both my trail cams are out - but one is coming home. I'll stick the top of this latest one back in the dirt and see if I can "catch" the culprit. Then I have every intention of killing it - no matter what it is.

Any ideas?

[BarryBobPosthole]

Rat or rabbit would be my guess.

BKB

[Captain]

Rabbit

[Thumper]

Hidey-ho, my (now ex) wife and I got all gung-ho into the gardening thing back in 1977. We had everything that will grow in the State of Florida in that garden! Not counting all the work I had to do preparing the site (my labor is cheap), we had the same sorts of problems .. especially the bugs (this is FLORIDA!). I figured once I accounted for the labor, the water, the ground prep materials, tomato stakes and (wire cages), stakes wires for the pole beans, the fact I had to buy half of Dow Chemical to fight bugs and to fertilize ... a frigging tomato wound up costing me approximately $1,657,932.48! That was the last garden I had ... that is, until Lynn decided to plant (read, had ME plant) an herb garden. I just figured out a sprig of thyme runs us about $89.57!

Gardening ain't for me. We just go to the local farmers market about 10 mins from the house and load up on fruits and veggies for pennies!

[No-till Boss]

Rabbit

[HideHunter]

rabbit would have to climb over a 4 foot fence and I'd think they'd go for the beans first.

I have a "Thump" story about gardens. My mom always had a *huge* garden.. Now this is a woman who should have been CEO of a major corporation somewhere.. "housewife and mother" just simply didn't keep her occupied. From the time I was old enough to crawl I spent every freaking hour in a garden or strawberry patch. I hate both to this day. One day (I was about 10) after I had spent all damn day picking and snapping green beans - we made our monthly trip to the store (25 miles). I happened to walk by a display of green beans. I picked one up and checked the price.. nine &*%#* cents. 9 - NINE cents. I made a vow and I kept it for 50 years. I would buy my green beans. When I was 12 I took over the hog and milking chores and got out of the whole gardening thing.. good riddance.

Trail cam is set. Looked the last plant over well. After it cut the plant off, it clipped a few of the upper leaves.. doesn't really seem to be eating the leaves - just clipping off the stems.

[Buckrub]

Sasquatch.

My garden is at Kroger. It's awesomely beautiful.

[No-till Boss]

rabbit would have to climb over a 4 foot fence and I'd think they'd go for the beans first.

I have a "Thump" story about gardens. My mom always had a *huge* garden.. Now this is a woman who should have been CEO of a major corporation somewhere.. "housewife and mother" just simply didn't keep her occupied. From the time I was old enough to crawl I spent every freaking hour in a garden or strawberry patch. I hate both to this day. One day (I was about 10) after I had spent all damn day picking and snapping green beans - we made our monthly trip to the store (25 miles). I happened to walk by a display of green beans. I picked one up and checked the price.. nine &*%#* cents. 9 - NINE cents. I made a vow and I kept it for 50 years. I would buy my green beans. When I was 12 I took over the hog and milking chores and got out of the whole gardening thing.. good riddance.

Trail cam is set. Looked the last plant over well. After it cut the plant off, it clipped a few of the upper leaves.. doesn't really seem to be eating the leaves - just clipping off the stems.

You don't have a turtle in the fence do you ?

[Big Muddy]

HH, sounds like a squirrel...they got into my sweet corn, for the first time ever, this year....not much damage, however, after I killed the four ringleaders....thought it was coons, initially, but I could never find any tracks....finally caught the squacks dropping outta the nearby oak trees, directly onto the stalks....and, like your tomato plants, they cut the stalks off about 4-6 inches above the ground....they like the sweet sap in the stalks of veggies.

[DeputyDog]

We all know that the two of you know what to do with squirrels.

[HideHunter]

lol.. well - some great guesses.. I went high tech and low tech. Wife said when she walked out there yesterday - she saw a "mouse" run out. I set the trail camera but also a plain old mouse trap with peanut butter. An hour later - we had a vole ( a particularly fat , nasty vole - I might add) - evil looking thing with big tushes hanging out of his mouth like a wart hog. I was wishing I'd set a 330 Conibear instead of the mouse trap - but he was deceased. Glad I didn't have to track him wounded into the brush. That's when they're the most dangerous. This morning - trap is still set and nothing on the trail cam. If that's what it was - too little, too late for the tomatoes... but I got his little ass.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Is a vole the same thing as a shrew?

Congrats on your successful rodentary project.

BKB

[Chicken Dinner]

Do you score a trophy vole by skull size or body weight?

[BarryBobPosthole]

Sounds like it could've made Pope and Young book if he'd shot it with a bow.

BKB

[HideHunter]

Barry - nope - shrew is carnivorous - Vole herb... CD - tushes and spurs.

[Thumper]

Sounds like it could've made Pope and Young book if he'd shot it with a bow.

BKB

Doesn't Matt Miller hold the current record? Or was that a mouse? (it's been a while)

[BarryBobPosthole]

I thought it was a chipmonk.

BKB

[Thumper]

Oh yeah, that's right. Are there individual categories in the record books, or is it just filed under a generic "rodent" category?

[BarryBobPosthole]

Well, as has been pointed out there dangerous ones and not so dangerous ones. And of the former, theres tame one and wild ones I guess.

Ought to be at least two categories.

BKB

[Sunshine]

I have two traps set.
Still trying to get this mole.
Damn thing keeps pushing dirt into my traps so it can't clamp down on him.

[quercus alba]

if you can find some calcium carbide, put a little in the tunnel and pour some water on it and cover. moles and gopher don't like it,

[BarryBobPosthole]

Especially when you light it.
BKB

[Buckrub]

Vole Lives Matter.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Maybe his vole self identifies as a shrew.

It needs to be tamed I say! Stop this senseless bigotry and killing!

BKB

[LJ3]

Dang! I guess I better not identify as a vole around here!

[Thumper]

I'm a Vole ... I went to Univ. of Tennessee!

No wait!! .....

[Buckrub]

I absolutely love this place.

[DeputyDog]

Barry, why are you bigoted against wild shrews? Why do they need tamed? Why can't you just accept them the way they are?

[BarryBobPosthole]

All this shrewd behavior is becoming dangerous.

BKB

[Thumper]

Some of P-holes ex-girlfriends were shrews.