Being a Garden Sleuth

Created on 7/8/2009

There’s no question it’s maddening when you go out to the garden in the morning, and find half eaten vegetables sitting below the plants or entire crops mowed to the ground. Before you can do anything to remedy the situation, you need to figure out what’s eating your garden.

Sometimes it’s obvious. If there are deer tracks and scat all over the place, you can figure the hooved rodents hit the garden during the night. Other times, it’s not so easy to determine. On one of the “Mom” sites I frequent, a lady thought rabbits were coming in, and eating her just-ripe tomatoes. I don’t think this is the case since rabbits typically chew down plants – they don’t pick the veggies. My thought is her culprit is either a skunk or a raccoon.

The easiest way to figure out what is visiting the vegetable patch is to become an old fashioned tracker. Look for paw prints in the mud (water down an area if you’re dry) and for droppings. It’s easy to find photos of both on-line by searching for “raccoon scat” or “skunk scat.” (Some people are fascinated by this topic, and have multiple pictures.)

Part of being a good tracker is knowing the habits of the animals. For example, groundhogs (a.k.a. woodchucks) are like big rabbits in the garden. They won’t pick specific vegetables. Instead, they’ll mow down the entire plant. On the other hand, raccoons and skunks will eat just about anything they can wrap their little paws around. They’re not picky.

A fun way to figure out what’s eating your plants is to set up a game camera. These are found at sporting goods stores or on-line, and are used by hunters to see what animals (primarily bucks) are using an area before they decide where to set up a tree stand. But, I know a lot of people who set them up just to see what’s coming through their yard or garden at night. I sent one to my father back in Ohio to see if he could catch a glimpse of the coyotes that killed his sheep one night, and there are people out here in Montana who have captured images of mountain lions passing through the area. It’s an extra set of eyes that tells you a completely different story than what you see during the day.

An inexpensive camera will cost a little more than $100, and most are very easy to use. Mount them up on a tree or post to give you a good perspective on the garden. Set the sensor to trigger the digital camera at whatever distance you’d like. Then just pull out the memory card to plug into your computer in the morning to see what came through the night before. This way you’ll have hard evidence on what you’re dealing with so you can take the appropriate measures... which I’ll discuss on next week’s blog.