Woodchuck will taste and spit stuff out. They can climb.

No woodchucks here or groundhogs thankfully!

Agree. Or do you have crows? I've seen them do that.

Dave

I'm having an odd problem right now... something just bit off all of the entire tallest leaves off of my two tallest bullshorn pepper plants, and is eating the top leaves off of my climbing bean vines... and also some Hosta leaves for some reason, and there is nothing for the thief to really stand on with the Hosta. Ignores lower leaves, ignores carrot tops. Would a bird do this? Why would a groundhog climb up and ignore the lower plant? Squirrels?

No crows. About any other kind of bird though.

I'm betting on those darned chipmunks! They have been chewing on my Coreopsis flowers. Last year they destroyed the Petunias by pulling all the petals off, so I don't grow those any more. Even worse, I have just put in a new flower garden and they have dug holes beside every single plant, exposing the roots. I HATE chipmunks!

Linda

The practice of taking a bite and then discarding it sounds like tree rats to me. But I wonder what kind of mega fence you have? I've seen deer jump over my neighbor's seven foot fence. Deer tend to eat the tops of plants and leave the rest. They've been particularly destructive to my tomatoes this year.

It's 8 ft cedar/cattle panels insets with nowhere really to land except raised beds, so I feel okay about putting a garden in the middle of a deer super highway. But climbing and squeezing varmints I don't have an answer for!

The damage was almost delicate if that makes any sense. So I'm thinking small rodent of some kind.

Might be easier to get a cat. Mine seem to keep the rodent population under control.

I vote for rats. Last year we noticed branches of our fig tree being bitten off, and then leaves just left on our deck. Day after day, new branches. The tree was being slowly decimated. Another forum suggested some bowls with poison, and since we have no pets, we tried that. Caught a huge possum. He didn't get far before the poison got him, BUT the damage went on, so we set rat traps. The snap kind. Caught about 15 rats. This year when the tree came out of dormancy, the traps went up and we caught two. No more damage.

This little beast watches me plant then at dusk she digs the seed up. Just put more bitter melon in this pot and she was trying to find them. My landlord won't allow pets so no cat for me. Hum. Everyone else has cute pictures of deer, but over here...

More intact marigold flower heads on the ground today, but no other damage. It's a mystery!

Maybe a vole? We have them in my community garden and they will cut a line of beans down as if it was done with scissors but they don't eat them. One gardener thought someone was sabotaging her watering system by cutting the feeder hose; not a person it was a vole. It did look like someone cut it with a knife. I think voles must have very sharp claws. I watched a vole sneak out of its hole a couple of times and grab stems from the surrounding vegetation. It looked like the vole was cutting the stems with somethings sharp but really difficult to see exactly how since those voles are tiny... They are kind of cute but very destructive. Use a sturdy mouse trap, I use the black plastic ones baited with peanut butter. Make sure you anchor the trap to the ground or something stable, with wire so the vole doesn't drag it away when it gets caught.

@Wild Haired Mavens. That is a sad photo! There must be something you can do to get rid of that thing! Electric fencing concept?

Hope you can figure it out! What a mystery.

Years ago when I had first moved I planted 3 tomato plants as that's all I had room for. Came out one morning and it was as if someone had sawed them off about an inch up. Plants were just laying there, uneaten. Best guess was a rabbit. I'm still sad about that years later!

@suzi, I'm sure any trap would work, but I don't want touch it. Im going to try a fine chicken wire and lay out dried thorny canes. Or i may pay for an exterminator

Wild Haired Mavens, what IS that?

I don't think mine is a vole. The plants themselves and the soil is undisturbed. i'm still thinking squirrel who has an aversion to pretty flowers.

Its mice, they don't normally dig, but I've been planting peanuts, These critters are watching me then going to where i touched to dig the seed out.

They normally eat seedlings and tender leaves. They'll eat every leaf off the beans. If seedlings are being beheaded, leaves are eaten to the stem, flowers are being spit out, its rodents.

They eat flowers, but would spit out marigolds. In fact they spit out a lot of things checking for edibles. They decapitate many plants, chewing through them to get to others.

I'm going to try chicken wire.

When i stayed in the mountains an owl lived outside my window, best mouser ever. Each night he would stare at me with those big glow in the moon lit eyes. Big yellow orbs always sizing me up. This city is in desparate need of owls.