Kathy, are you sure it isn't squirrels? I noticed I had a tomato plant missing today. That one was definitely squirrels. I had little holes all up and down my beds. grrrrr.

Lisa

Kathy,

It could be almost anything. It can be hard to determine which animal is doing the damage if you can't catch it in the act.

I assume whatever varmint is attacking your plants is eating the entire missing portion? Sometimes birds clip off plants, but often they'll leave the part they clipped off lying on the ground. (I don't know why they do it.) Bird netting should work, or something sheer like a sheer curtain, cheesecloth or floating row cover.

Unfortunately, once plants are in the ground, they are vulnerable to every creature that finds them. I pretty much cage everything even though we have a pretty good fence around the garden. Of course, the cages don't keep out birds or very tiny animals like voles, but they help.

Sometimes you can hang something that moves near your plants and the constant movement scares off birds and animals that might harm your plants. Some nurseries sell bird flash tape, but you also can use CDs or DVDs tied to string, surveyor's tape, aluminum pie pans or chicken pot pie pans, etc. I have a scarecrow in my garden and it keeps most of the birds away, but the mockingbirds sit on the scarecrow's head and sing, so some animals are not easily scared.

Good luck,

Dawn

Mice and rats have given me huge problems. But I've caught nearly 20 mice and 2 rats so far. I lost nearly all my lettuce to them, with only the spicy mesclun mix surviving. Guess they don't like it either. LOL. They ate my first two crops of radishes too, and spinach, and sunflowers. For the lettuce, they'd eat off all the leaves and leave a nub that would sprout new leaves for a while, but they'd eat those off too. For the radishes, spinach and sunflowers they'd just leave a stalk and eat all the top off.

Pretty relentless.

Once I got really serious about the traps though, the predation ended.

Sadly I also killed a toad and two birds, and caught one other toad and bird. The toad seemed fine, even though it got smashed in my strongest trap. I let it go and it hopped off and dug itself in under the edge of a rock, and was gone later. The bird had a broken leg and it flew off when I let it go. I doubt it will survive. I'm sorry about the collateral damage, but I've killed a lot of mice.

I believe it's the crows. They nip off the leaf and it's usually there for me to find. I think I'm going to pull out the sheers and see if that helps. This is in my new raised beds. No little foot prints, so I don't believe it's squirrels. No holes, so I'm not thinking moles, voles, mice or rats.

I'm also going to use my little flimsy small shepard's hooks that the little boys bought me at Dollar Tree. LOL, the little guys really thought they were buying me something very useful. We just told them that they were small to hold yard decorations like flags and stuff :) But they should come in handy for this. Perhaps a few of the cheaper metal windchimes that they boys have also bought me. They may be light in the pocket, being only 12 and 9, but they always think about Mom when they go to a store :) I think in this case, that might come greatly in handy :)

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Kathy

I thought it was bunnies, when I lived in Tulsa. There were BUNCHES of them in my neighborhood. but I found out, it was cutworms!

Yup, just ugly cutworms. When I put toilet paper collars on my new transplants, they survived. :)

Moni

Here is a link that might be useful: googled cutworm pics

Gamebird, you need a cat! Or two.

They'll hunt the birds too, but if there are that many mice and rats around, that might be enough to keep them interested.

I've experienced some breakage. Gusts of wind, I think. I've lost several flowers off the iris plants and I'm hoping the Kellogg's breakfast tomato plant will come back up from the root. The wind was really howling last night.

I have trouble with the cackles(?sp). They will pull the radishes and drop them and take a look and then pull the next one. I use a row cover to stop it. Only the early ones. After the green shows up elsewhere or they get a little size they tend to leave them alone. I notice Sat. something had ate or nipped most of the top off one horseradish crown. For individual plants if I have trouble I just put a bucket or plastic milk carton over them. If warmer I remove the top and use some screen over the top. Jay