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Plants are disappearing one by one! help!

13 years ago

Ok, so this is my first 'garden' ever. I had a row of morning glories planted (seedlings) and most were just starting to climb and one by one they started to disappear, like they were cut off right at the ground! They are gone now. Then my lettuce started going...one by one, they were small, but gone now. I have a section of mint, parsley and thyme...those are all fine. I have a row of mammoth sunflowers and some other kind of sunflowers (not sure what they are) and after the lettuce went, it looked like the sunflowers were being gnawed at the stalked at the very bottom and a few wilted and fell over (I pulled those out). My roma tomatos are in front of the sunflowers (near where the lettuce was and the morning glory was behind my sunflowers)...well, One roma is gone (looked like it was hacked off with a one inch stump left). :-( I wasn't so mad about that one, it had no tomatos on it yet and was rather small. BUT, Yesterday, I went out to check on everything and saw that another tomato plant (with at least 3 growing romas) was attacked. *sigh* romas were gone, whatever it was left me a couple branches on the ground around it. I have 3 more roma plants next to that one, all with growing tomatos on it (these ones are a bit bigger). I'm afraid they are next. I can't figure out what it is. I've gone out at night, and not seen anything (slugs, snails, etc.) I have tomatilla, squash and something else, can't remember now, planted out there too, and so far they are ok, but gosh, at this rate, I'll end up with a bare garden! I did find a 'hole' out there on the opposite side of the garden by my baby orange tree....and I did see a little critter pop it's head out when I was watering, as if to tease me. Looked kind of like a mouse or rat (bigger than a mouse, cuter than a rat). Mole? No mounds out there. Just a hole in the ground. I hacked away at it with my spade to find a few tunnels right under the surface...so I burried them and put some rocks on top (didn't stop the critter, the holes kept reappearing). shoot. Sorry this was long, but I don't know what to do, and wanted to get the 'big picture' out there. Please help since I am a complete newbie! Oh and I have seen a squirrel out there. and there are birds (they love my sunflowers)

Thank you!!!

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Comments (3)

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
13 years ago
Your description of the animal you saw might be that of a vole. If you have one vole, you'll also be playing host to a hoard of friends and relatives. Very capable of a great deal of destruction in the garden (and landscape beds, and orchard, etc.).
taz6122
13 years ago
Voles usually go for the roots or rhizomes. The lopping off sounds more like a rabbit or deer.
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teejay2039
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I second the vote for rabbit or deer..... rabbit ate my starter broccoli plants b4 i even got them in the ground.... left an inch of stem and one single plant. Last year, deer or rabbits came up in my front yard (we have woods in back and on sides of us) and ate the gorgeous leaves off my hostas. :( This year... I moved them. LOL

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