This post keeps coming back, like the flu during school semesters. I have grown Devil's Trumpet for two years now. (Anyone bother to notice this is was written 3 gardening seasons ago?) I chose it because thorn apples cause a bad trip - hallucinations - more often than death. Didn't work. Squirrels haven't tried it. Then again, squirrels have stopped bothering us. We covered our tomatoes with fruit tree netting and squirted the little suckers unmercifully, when they got under the netting anyway. It was funny. Their natural reaction was to run upward, but the only escape was to run down and out. Soaked little tree rats. I think we tramatized them. They go by our yard over the telephone pole wires, and stare at us, hard, as they go by. One little movement from us has them running for three more yards before they pause. lol Not total triumph though. The squirrels didn't bother our plants all summer (two little diggy spots, but that's easily resolved by adding stones, glass marbles, or rose cane.) Instead, late blight wiped out our tomatoes and are now going for our peppers. I'm originally from South Jersey of "Jersey tomatoes" fame, so I'm passionate about tomatoes. Here it is, August and no more homegrown tomatoes this year. As for worrying about poisoning the critters with thorn apples. I did consider the fall out. IF it killed them (and I assumed they'd take a bite and decide it didn't taste good, so would get sick and hallicinate, teaching them stuff in our garden isn't good), by the time it killed them, it would have digested enough and they would have been too bad looking, so there would be no critters eating it that aren't also invasive to the area. (Starlings and pigeons. Two other cirtters that deserve no fretting about.) The logic of not killing a species that has outgrown its territory eludes me. The same "logic" is used for deer, oppossum, racoons, and a variety of other species that just don't work in a city. Because politicians worry about animal activists, instead, people in the city are in danger from "harmless" animals. Rabies has come back as a problem easily correctible. Cars run into deers on a major city thoroughfare. And squirrels? Well, those suckers destroy roofs, crawl spaces, and wiring when they seek new nesting areas by invadig our homes. All things rectifiable, if animal activists would simply realize, an overflow of critters in a city is bad for the people living there. Not like squirrels are on the endangered species list. If anything - too many. A shame, they are tasty, but shooting in the city has its problems, too. (People worry about invading critters, but not hungry people.) As for not wishing that on a worse enemies - cool. Your life has been good. My worse enemies have caused enough physical damage that I wouldn't mind making them sick and have them hallucinate on thorn apple either. I wouldn't intentionally poison them, but if they were foolish enough to eat one, I wouldn't warn them about the danger until they chewed a couple of times. It's really a matter of degrees on what enemies have done. What's been done to me deserves jail time, at best. There was a day when those enemies would have been killed for their actions. Never underestimate waht "worse enemy" is to some people. Now, don't mind me. Keep arguing back and forth. This post keeps returning because, face it, "Tree Squirrels are Winning." I just hope others learn how we stopped being hassled by them.

LOL! Yes tree frogs are incredibly loud! I had about 5-6 singing to each other yesterday evening in the back yard and I could hardly hear my family talking to me while out on the deck! They are really hard to find too. I have one that retires to a little ledge on the top of my shed every year.....same spot. He's so cute! I love going to sleep with my windows open so I can hear them, but sometimes, I just have to close the window 'cause they are sooooooo loud! They are pretty amazing little creatures. I think they are attracted to my backyard because I have several little water gardens. They deposit their eggs in the water. They are so sensitive to the presence of water, that if I go out to just water a few plants, they start singing! I don't know if they see the water, or just hear or smell it! Ain't nature grand? :)

What theres no seeds and nothing needs saving. I have 2 African clawed frogs I feed them reptomin sticks, shrimp pellets, hermet crab food which is just whole shrimp, krill, and crickets.

I think it is perfectly on-topic. Frogs (and toads) are wonderful garden companions and help control the pest population by eating tons of pests. Of course, the downside is that the frogs also might devour some of the beneficial insects too. With rampant flooding all around us, we are getting tons of new wildlife showing up in the yard looking for high ground, food and water. The million frogs that showed up in May laid eggs so we're going to have a billion frogs by the end of the summer. Early in the morning, there's so many frogs in the garden that you have to walk slowly to give them time to jump out of your path. I wish we could train the frogs and toads to sit on top of the porch light and eat all the little pests buzzing around it at night. Like George, I leave little brushy corners (and small flat pans of water in dry years) for the toads. It is impossible to have too many frogs or toads in the garden, except that a lot of snakes come to the garden to eat them, so the population never really gets way out of control.