The biggest pests in my garden are the "landscape workers" hired by the management of the housing development. They trample plant I.D. posts, trample plants, spray weedkiller within a foot of my garden on windy days (with the predictable results of damage to my plants), and leave evergreen cuttings all over the garden when they trim the bushes. The second worst pests are the squirrels and birds who eat the Sluggo pellets. The third worst pests are the slugs themselves.

Thanks for contributing Esther, I'd never have thought of that.

I had planned to make the player protect his precious plants for a show, and how others might sabotage or you allow yourself to fall into disrepute, forcing inspections from the Council to shut you down ;)

he'd get a blast from the hose pipe too!

Hi again Esther, with a little bit of research I found that laying down a wire mesh to keep squirrels from digging up pellets works, can you testify to this? And apparently baby powder on mothballs works?

What do you do with the squirrels, don't they just take the seeds? I read that the squirrels would become ill from such pellets?

Humans are the most obvious problem, and entirely preventable, in a perfect world. The ID issue allow for the greens to be accidentally mixed up and could be a useful game mechanic.

I've tried red pepper flakes, commercial anti-squirrel powders you shake on your garden, you name it. Only ONE thing has worked against squirrels---egg-sized or larger stones I place around each and every plant they would otherwise uproot. Nothing like coming home and finding a $15 hosta dug up, laying on the surface with its roots dehydrating. I make a complete ring of big stones around each plant, and that seems to keep the squirrels from digging up the plants.

The plain Sluggo pellets say on the label that they are pet and wildlife safe. It's the Sluggo Plus that has a toxic compound added to it which could kill wildlife.

I don't plant seeds, they take too long to get to viewing size. The dumb squirrels and birds think the expensive Sluggo pellets are seeds and scarf them down. I finally found some flat bottles with inch-wide necks I lay down with the Sluggo inside. Slugs can get in, but not birds or squirrels.

Interesting Esther, wouldn't the birds pick off the slugs/snails when trapped?

I can't imagine why they wouldn't be able to moved the stones, they seem like they could manage? In my game the player will just kick them over the fence!

However, red pepper spray would be a great weapon in general, I like it!

Do you ever plant vegetables, do squirrels go for them?

One way to get slugs is to bury a bowl of old beer to the rim. They crawl in and drown.

Not so funny but we have a lot of bugs in our community garden. Mostly I pick them off and drown them in a bucket of soapy water. Sometimes I have to do that at night with a flashlight. Some pests you can only catch at night like asiatic garden beetles which eat many plants. One time I did feed some squash bugs to a praying mantis. The giant green dragonflies (green darner) will also chow down on bugs. Bugs like Praying Mantis, grasshopers and jumping spiders will stare you down. A Jumping Spider will also follow you around. Wool carder bees will guard their flowers and chase the other bees away, even bumble bees twice their size. They will even fly between a person and the flower and hover there.

Hi Loretta, thanks for the info, I like the profile on how these creatures operate. I have difficulty modes in mind, but it makes sense that come foes are made of sterner stuff, and the more realistic that is the better for the game.

I actually use Snails as the currency of the game with a French Connection who trades items to better aid the players efforts in their constant seasonal battle with the pests e.g. x2 snails can be traded for a sling shot.

I read that beer was too good to drown snails in, and besides, our French Connection needs them alive for his restaurant.

Hi CA Kate z9 (9B), I actually have a cat as a hidden character to make available to help when the level difficulty increases, which I will be sure to focus more on these rodents with bushy tails.

In fact I just recently finished sketching out the squirrel, which a great experience to learn how it's head is shaped and body is so similar to larger mammals found, even cats.

I have been away for too long, but that's because I have been busy coding and learning how to create graphics. I have some artwork to show and would appreciate feedback please:

I hope you like it, I'm no expert but it took me ages to figure out how to make the tree looks 3D in pixelart!

Here is has Quince liberally hanging from it (maybe too many and too uniform!). I am restricted to a palette of 16 colours, so that is why things look odd, but it's the charm of the old technique.

Does it look fun, does it look like a game you would like to play?

Pleas let me know..

I'll have to have my son comment as he is the expert on that in this house. What program are you using? And what is Folwing?

FowlingUpMyLawn is just the code name for the project :)

I am using Swift (iOS), but I did the pixelart was in a graphics editing app called Pixelmator.

OK - you reversed the 'w' and 'l' in the picture.

My son wonders if you started the tree from scratch. He says it looks really good. He isn't sure what is happening on the ground with the grass. Also why is it partially black and white? Is that on purpose or just work in progress? As far as the text on the graphic, to make it more readable, he likes to use a stroke around the text or an opaque box. (Unless that is just your way of making a watermark for your graphic, then he takes it back).

He wants to know if this is your first time doing pixelart and the tree in general because he says the tree looks very good.

Well, thank him for me, I am humbled.

The text is spelt incorrectly, it's suppose to be "Fowling Up My Lawn", you got me there. It's just a watermark and the b&w is so people don't rip me off :)

The style of art is known as "pixelart" which might well be familiar to you, it is meant to look "retro". If you search online for keywords "pixelart tree" you will see something very familiar, until you focus in and see each leaf is different.

I taught myself the technique in about three weeks, from the beginning of this month, after coding some game mechanics: buying items in the shop and how damage is calculated.

I started with the vegetables, but needed a tree and found the best online that I could. It is quite a complex process to layer and structure the leaves to appear 3D, it took a week to figure out, and ended up with something imperfect, but something that I can ship.

Since I now know how it goes together I plan to code a tree so that they can generate themselves, but not right now of course.

The tree here is very close up, so the grey on the ground is actually shading, which is not too bad once the grass is textured and more items are on screen.

The fruits are supposed to be quince, you'll notice some rotting on the floor. This season is autumn, that's why the tree branches are somewhat visible - this season also has chestnuts and figs..

Well it's looking good. I don't play a lot of games but I did get addicted to the first Plants vs Zombies.

Thank you Loretta. I can't promise my game will be as captivating, but if you would like you can beta test and let me know if it's fun.

I'll let you know when it's ready, but I'll need a few more months.

Sounds great! Best of luck!

Maybe add a big beautiful yellow garden spider, otherwise known as writing spider that catch insects in their web and save for a snack later. I have a picture of one in my favorites you can look at. Haven't figured out how to post picture on tread yet.

Never mind,my pictures aren't there. Here is the same spider I saw on YouTube

https://youtu.be/nCgZN_uI3Ys

I guess kind of funny story my mom had a couple in her garden and whenever I stopped by I would "feed" the spider by finding a bug and throwing it into the web.