Protecting my Investments

16 years ago

I'm wondering if you would share your tips for protecting your crops. I'm having some terrible trouble. I'm a third-year market farmer. Up until this year I was growing and selling just flowers. I had a few pests but the situation was controllable(?) This year I've expanded to peas, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cukes, squash and onions. Almost every morning I discover something has eaten at least one type of plant. This morning I discovered two of my best tomato plants had their top 6 inches of growth eaten off and something ate my largest dahlia top. My peas are munched on regularly. I have been fighting an infestation of four-lined plant bugs and mealy bugs on my potato plants. I've grown all these things successfully before but it was on a city lot and admittedly, I didn't have the critters there that I have here in my rural home. Could this be rabbits? Groundhogs? Raccoons? I'm going nuts here.

I'm thinking of erecting either fencing or some hoop houses. Any suggestions for fencing that might work? I'll do whatever it takes, except give up. I'm a woman on a mission! HA!

Thanks for your help. This forum has been invaluable to me.

HarveysPooka

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Comments (6)

moonblooms
16 years ago
We had a problem earlier this year with rabbits eating our sunflowers. We sprinkled moth balls around and it helped. I've also read that human hair is a deterrent (ask your local barber or hair stylist to save it for you). I think that's kind of yucky though, so we went with the moth balls.

As for the bugs, one of the best solutions is to keep the area around your beds mowed. Our bugs like to live in the tall weeds, so if we mow, they get chopped up before they can do much damage.
ohiorganic
16 years ago
Never ever use mothballs in a food garden! They are quite toxic.

We use dogs to keep deer and bunnies out of the garden, mouse traps for voles.

For insects we use a lot of row cover, crop rotation, hand picking, neem, soap sprays, bird netting and keeping the beneficial critter populaion atracted to our farm by never using toxic chemicals and having areas for the beneficials to hang out in. This means some areas are left unmowed, we make tiny rock cairns for ground spiders, have places for song birds to perch

Mowing around beds is a good idea as that gives the insects no place to hide.

Dog hair works really well at keeping deer away as long as you have actual dogs running loose on the farm. Deer will figure out in a week or so if there is no real dog threat and ignore the hair
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reagantrooper
16 years ago
A well maintained electric fence with a wire at 3", 7" and about 36" protects my garden from the hated ground hog, the fluffy bunny and the deer.

Granted these guys do have the ability to dig under and jump over but I think when they get "bit" buy the fence once they tend to stay away.

I also have a very accurate .22 Ruger for the bunnies and the dreaded ground hog!!
anniew
16 years ago
A recent speaker warned newbies not to start marketing veggies until they had two things: a fence and an irrigation system.
I'm just a tiny market gardener who hardly makes anything each year, but my first investment was a fence. White tail deer in the east can jump an 8 foot fence, but usually won't. I have an old barbed wire fence that is in rickety shape, but put a 6 foot welded wire fence 6 feet inside the barbed wire one. The deer don't seem to want to jump that much horizontal span, so I rarely have had any problem with deer over the last few years. However, once a rabbit or woodchuck gets in (when the gate is open presumably) he get "locked in." A live trap or a .22 works to solve those problems.
Expecting most other solutions to work may be unrealistic, especially in certain years when the deer population is large, as they are forced to seek food where they normally might not bother. So the non-fence protection things work depending on the deer pressure.
I love to wish people good luck in growing, but if they think they can outsmart nature in all years without fencing, I think they'll need a lot more than my good luck wishes.
Ann
sundacks
16 years ago
I haven't even started marketing my veggies yet, but I have had a problem with groundhogs and deer. The electric fence at 3, 7, and 36 inches seems to work for the deer.
I picked up a great hint online (I think from the National Wildlife Fund): used kitty litter poured into the groundhog holes. They don't seem to like a messy house. I watched the groundhog one morning as he checked the two holes near the garden - he looked in each one, shook his head, and I haven't seen him since!
Of course, the key here is you have to find his dens...
reagantrooper
16 years ago
The lower wires of the electric fence has worked for me on the ground hogs.

Protecting my Investments

Comments (6)

moonblooms

ohiorganic

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